


Seriously

by cat_77



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Set firmly in the Marvel Universe, Very little of Cascade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 85,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8917558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: She takes very little seriously in a life filled with aliens and super heroes, but she might just make an exception for a guy with some serious PTSD issues that reminds her of someone else she knows far too well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this. I also have no idea how something I thought would be maybe 25K words ended up closer to 85K instead. Set very soundly in the Marvel universe with very little of Cascade and its own heroes mentioned.
> 
> * * *

So, she might have gotten lost. In her defense the place was massive, as in scarily so, as in it was built to be a statement and it really made one hell of one. So she was lost and in a huge place full of tiny little places and she wandered from one to another to another and wondered if the GPS on her phone was good enough for people to locate her down to like a five foot radius.

It was a StarkPhone, so the chances were yes.

No, she was not going to call for help. That would just be admitting defeat.

So was asking the scary computer system that seemed to run the whole place. Plus, see the part about scary. No building should have that much control and not be part of a horror movie.

She was about to try door number six...teen, which she really hoped might actually be an elevator at this point because if she could get to the lobby she could find her way back up to the labs and known territory, when someone else came barreling down the hallway and damn near ran her over. She was torn because on the one hand it was finally another person and maybe they knew where the hell she was, but on the other: rude. Also, the new and loud klaxon was just damn annoying.

Her mouth fired before her brain so she didn't notice the whole black-on-black and possibly heavily armed ensemble until after she she shouted with as much distain and sarcasm as she could muster, "You know, most people say excuse me!"

The man, because he was one, whipped around and she had about a second to register that the sole person she had finally found looked well and truly crazy before he slammed her up against a wall and growled, "You shouldn't be here."

There was something about him though, maybe the terrified look to his eyes or the way he was breathing far too fast and sweating far too much and was really far too pale, that made her change from frightened to concerned - and for him and not just herself. She had dealt with gods and alien elves, a guy having a panic attack in an abandoned hallway was nothing. 

It was about time she put those psych classes to use anyway.

He wasn't choking her, not completely, more just holding her in place and she found she was free to do what she did best, which was to talk. "Hey," she tried in the voice she used to calm down her ex's little sister after one too many campfire mochas with an extra shot. "Take a breath before you hyperventilate, okay? Like, a real one? In... and out... Got it? Slowly." 

She was frankly surprised when it worked and he did what she said. 

His grip relaxed a little but the look in his eyes didn't, so she said, "Okay, and again." He did as told like a pro, but he didn't actually seem to be calming all that much. 

Her hand went up to his and pushed it down slightly. It went, but in slow and jerky movements like a toddler trying to control one of those annoying stick puppets with floppy legs. She had the feeling she might be the toddler in this case, but ignored that thought to try to move his hand a little bit more instead. Unfortunately, the action made his wrist brushed up against her grandmother's old locket that she had taken to wearing because it looked cool and was large enough to fit a piece of gum in. Well, Trident, which was close enough to being real gum and worked in a pinch when she was stuck in a long meeting and needed a distraction.

He gripped onto the gaudy piece of metal like he had never seen anything so valuable in his life. The chain tugged against the back of her neck, not hard, but enough that she suspected he barely even registered she was still there. He twisted the locket back and forth, the bright overhead light catching and reflecting off of the various grooves. He was like a kid with a new Gameboy, or maybe a kitten with one of those laser things, his attention solely on the glint of bright on slightly tarnished gold, eyes dilated impossibly wide as he stared at something she was fairly certain only he could see. 

More importantly though, his breathing was calming into a slow and steady huff, just enough to move the long strands of her hair against her neck in a truly ticklish manner. She tried to stay still in deference to him though, encourage his lack of freak out with a lack of freak out of her own. Though many doubted it, she could actually stop moving once in a while.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere out of sight because of course she wasn't supposed to find out where the hell an open one was, and he flinched again. She was afraid she was going to lose him, and she was afraid he would be lost-lost, like for real. Her prof had told the class about a guy so lost in his own world when he'd have an attack that he literally wandered off to parts unknown. They had found him three days later at the bottom of a set of service steps that no one ever used, neck broken when he apparently missed the fact the steps were in fact steps and took a header.

That would be of the bad, so she figured they should avoid it if at all possible.

"Try to focus on the locket, okay? I know it's next to some banging cleavage, but look just at the pretty shiny and forget about everything else that must totally suck right now," she tried, latching on to the same thing he had. He finally lowered his arm and released his on her grip fully, but only to press his thumb up against the etched in design, some art deco thing from the twenties that her grandma had found in a pawn shop and fell in love with. "That's it," she encouraged. "Forget about that annoying noise and the fact that I probably still smell like formaldehyde from running into Doc Savanti earlier and just look at the pretty, okay? And keep breathing because that's totally important."

She tried to keep eye contact with him, well, look at his eyes to make sure he was still looking at the locket, and lightly patted him on the hand that was still tracing the pattern with a single fingertip. He flinched, but didn't look away. She flinched for a different reason entirely, and pulled her hand away to find sticky red.

"Shit! Are you hurt? Like in shock or something?" she asked. It would explain the fugue state, to at least some degree.

"No doctors," he muttered, whispered really.

"But we have some really good ones here?" she promised. "I burnt the crap out of my hand on one of Jane's new thingamabobs and they patched me up like new!" She waved her free hand off to the side, the slightly darker shade of pink just barely visible on the palm. It had hurt like a son of a bitch, as had the first part of the healing process before they gave her some seriously good drugs, and she been fine since, nothing more than a fading shade of difference.

His eyes reluctantly looked away from the locket to her recent injury, and she swore she saw them darken slightly. "You were hurt," he stated as if just figuring it out.

"But they made me better," she insisted. He wasn't bleeding on her sweater yet, but that might have been because his arm was raised and it was dripping more into his own sleeve than anywhere else.

"I'm not better," he whispered.

She raised her eyebrows and made the gigantic leap that he wasn't just talking about whatever he had gotten himself into recently. "Because you didn't see a doctor yet?" she guessed.

He opened his mouth as if to reply, but was stopped by the pounding of footsteps. "Bucky!" a seriously fit man in a ridiculous suit shouted as he approached. It took her mind an impossibly long time to figure out it was Steve "Captain America" Rogers, the ridiculous suit doing the majority of the work on that front. The footsteps skidded to a halt and the man he muttered something that sounded like the word "hostage" before sounding like a complete and total idiot when he said, "Just leave the girl alone, she has no part of this."

Now it was her turn to open her mouth but not get anything out. A different voice from a completely different direction replied, "It's okay, Rogers, she's been talking him down for the past five minutes."

She turned her head to the side a little too quickly at that. Her long hair brushed against the man's hand with the action and he flinched as though injured all over again. His hand jerked, and the chain jerked with it for a total of a second before he released it to let it fall back against her skin. "Natalia?" he asked, sounding like he was working his way out of a haze.

"You're fine, James," she insisted. "You didn't hurt anyone but yourself."

He looked away from what was truly a gorgeous redhead that she knew she knew if only her mind would catch up with her need to use it and then back to her, the fear turning to a look of horror. "I... I could have..."

His breathing sped up again and he was about to undo everything she had just accomplished which was just stupid. With that in mind, she managed to actually speak and say, "I'm good. I'm also Darcy by the way." She popped open the locket and offered, "Gum?"

His expression changed from horror to incredulousness and he sounded like he was choking, either on laughter or something else when he asked, "Are you insane?"

She shrugged. "Depends on who you ask. You asked me, so I'm saying no."

Now it really was laughter, but the odd almost hollow type when he asked, "Is there anything you take seriously?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Nope, not even myself. I've found the world is much easier that way."

Natalia, who now looked suspiciously like Jane's badass friend Natasha who she had hung out with herself more than once and was wearing some fancy suit of her own, snorted highly indelicately. "James Barnes, meet Darcy Lewis. She's Jane Foster's assistant and the only one of any of us to take down Thor if you ignore Wanda's mind games," she explained.

Darcy smirked because she could. "I tased him. It was awesome," she grinned. The look that said he thought she was nuts didn't waver, so she added, "He totally took it as a worthy warrior thing. We're buds, I swear."

He stared at her for a scarily long second before he pointed out, "You don't have a taser with you now."

"I also don't have my key card, which is how I got stuck on this floor at the wrong time in the right place," she agreed. She held up the locket again, the scent of over-sugared cinnamon rising to her nose. "Gum?" she offered again.

James/Bucky/Total PTSD guy stared at the tiny piece of cavity-granting goodness, and the covered his nose as if it personally offended him. "No, thank you," he managed, though sounded like he was choking on bile to do so. 

She snapped it shut and let the locket fall again, watching as he watched it. The intensity had lessened, but the interest really had not. "It'll save for later," she promised. She turned to her recent audience and tattled, "He's totally hurt by the way. Blood, grossness, the whole nine yards. I don't think he wants a doctor even though I told him Stark doctors rock. So do their shrinks, or so I've heard." She waggled her eyebrows to get her less than subtle meaning across.

James-guy whipped back around to her, hand raised as if ready to strike even though he stopped like a good foot away from her. "I don't -" he started, but never got to finish before he collapsed to the ground, tiny dot of blue spider webbing out from where it dug deep into the skin of his neck.

Nat-whatever looked pissed. "He wasn't going to hurt her!" she insisted, and Darcy tended to agree.

"Couldn't take that chance," Captain Steve shrugged in total non-apology. "He was completely disassociated with the situation and posed a potential threat to a civilian. He wrote the protocols himself."

"I think I resent being called a civilian," Darcy mused. After all she had been through - multiple alien gods, multiple aliens in general, funky science, and funkier interns - she felt she earned more than a civvie moniker. However, given the way the good All American Icon was looking at her, and the fact he apparently had mystical blue tranq thingies, she relented, "But I will accept it so long as you don't fricken shoot me with whatever you just dosed him with."

She held up her hands and was surprised to find them shaking. Come to notice, her entire body decided to play along with that game and she found herself needing to lock her knees just to stay upright. Okay, so maybe she did rank as a civilian after all, at least when faced with a badass, leather-clad guy who, come to notice, was totally decked out in a ton of weapons and had a metal fricken arm.

Nat-whatever was there now, and seemed to be guiding her to the floor, where she didn't really want to go but probably needed to be. "We'll get your throat looked at, just to be sure," she was saying, which didn't really make any sense but, okay, maybe it was harder than usual to swallow. She was saying other things as well, something that sounded like that it would be easier to treat Bucky-guy's wound while he was out and maybe about how he'd feel awful if he remembered. More importantly, she totally agreed when Darcy insisted she earned her tequila tonight, and top shelf at that.


	2. Chapter 2

He wished he could say that he came to slowly, but his training simply did not allow it. His body registered that it had been unconscious, which meant the possibility of threat from unknown sources and situations, and quickly worked to remedy what it found as a fault.

He kept his body not still, but in the precise rhythm he had learned to recognize as sleep. He first listened to his surroundings and, finding nothing of import save for the forced air so many modern buildings insisted upon, concentrated on his other senses instead. His body was laid out, head at a slight incline, a light covering draped over him. He was clothed, but not in what he knew he last wore. The tightness of leather and polymer was gone, a cotton-like material scratched against his legs instead of his usual harsher tactical gear, there was no support at his ankles from his tightly laced boots, and the familiar weight of his weapons was lacking.

Oddly, there appeared to be no restraints as he felt no pressure at his wrists nor ankles. He was not certain if he found this comforting or not as it was entirely possible he was contained in other ways.

There was the scent of antiseptic now that he searched for it, biting and cloying though it was far dampened from that of an open bottle or even a hospital or clinical situation. Underlying that was the detergent favored by his current facility, the supposedly scentless soap he had been gifted with, and the tang of his own stale sweat. There was also something more, lighter, airy, almost floral.

There was the slightest increase in temperature on his left but it felt like daylight and nothing more, so he turned his head to the right when he opened his eyes and said, "Hello, Natalia."

She reclined in the chair he had insisted he did not need in his rooms, uniform replaced by a simple t-shirt and jeans, stockinged feet propped up on the stack of books he had steadily been working through for the past several weeks. "Almost a full thirty seconds for the assessment, you must be beginning to trust us," she commented. She spoke Russian, not that it mattered when everything he did or said was watched over by a hyper-aware computer system that would easily translate and report anything deemed untoward.

"I'm not in the infirmary?" he asked, stating the obvious. It was entirely possible they had moved several items from his rooms to such a location, or even to a holding cell but, like she said, he was beginning to trust them enough to doubt such an act.

She kicked her feet up from the books to his mattress, and he felt the slight tug the action caused on the blankets. "We thought you'd be more comfortable here," she shrugged, watching and cataloging his responses. "Your feelings towards medical professionals are becoming legendary at this point, though Doctor Cho is beginning to take mild offense."

He shifted, and felt his new bandages pull. "I have spent far too long being a lab rat to volunteer for such things," he told her. A glance just slightly above and behind her and he added, "I trust I am to be confined here instead of a cell for attacking the girl?" It was a surprising allowance, really. He knew there were people looking for a reason to lock him up and throw away the key, and he practically handed them one all neat and embossed and presented on a silver platter.

"You didn't attack her and it's not volunteering to be a lab rat if you let us stitch you up when you get sliced with shrapnel," she corrected, but there was a kindness to her tone. The slightest tilt of her head, and she admitted, "Though I think it's safe to say you'll be under a little extra scrutiny for a while."

He thought back to the brunette he had met in the passageway. There had been fear in her eyes, but she hid it well. Her pulse had been slightly elevated, pupils dilated behind the shine of her glasses. He remembered the press of his thumb against her skin and the slight discoloration it had caused at the time, knew Natalia was lying or obfuscating the severity of the incident even as he knew the false scent of cinnamon would be a trigger to that particular memory for at least a short period of time.

Instead he asked, "Did she really take down Thor?"

The smile he received was worth it. "There is still a debate as to whether or not he was human at the time but, yes, she incapacitated him. To be fair though, his own girlfriend hit him with a van."

He shook his head, but felt his lips curl of their own accord. "You people are crazy," he told her.

"Some more than others," she agreed readily enough.

More serious now, he said, "I should apologize to her."

"You should keep your ass in that bed for at least a day to convince them you are trying to heal before you do anything else," she amended. "Play nice and we'll give you leave to go see your new friend."

He doubted he would be seen as friendly, not after his little performance, but wanted to at least make the attempt. There was plenty of crazy of his own to go around, and he didn't need to make innocent random people deal with it whether they took out a god in the past or not.

He remembered one other thing though, so he asked, "Did Steve shoot me with a tranq?"

"It wasn't Rogers that made the shot, even if he made the call. Also, the duo that created those sleepers call it a Night-Night Gun." This time she didn't even try to hide her amusement.

He snorted, opinion of craziness of the current institution he found himself in cemented. "I hate Barton, just so you know," he said amiably.

"He's easy to hate, but makes a far better friend than an enemy," she agreed readily enough. "He's saved more lives than he's willing to admit, which helps keep the urges to kill him at bay."

"I'll have to take your word for it," he grunted. His arm hurt - tolerable if needed, but still painful. Given that they had stripped and redressed him, he suspected they found the gash in his thigh as well. A subtle flex proved that yes, that was also wrapped up neatly and possibly stitched given the pull of it. He hated being unconscious and he hated being poked and prodded and he really hated it when both happened at once. He'd sulk, but knew she'd call him on it so he settled back in against the pillows instead. "When do I get out?" he asked as he closed his eyes. Natalia would keep watch; she usually did.

"Depends on your behavior," she replied, and he could hear the shrug in her tone. "You pretend to behave and listen to the docs, I pretend to not see it when you don't, and you let at least one semi-professional take a look at your injuries around this time tomorrow."

He made a face, but didn't open his eyes. "They'll be mostly healed by then anyway," he pointed out. One benefit of the hell he had gone through in life.

"Exactly."

* * *

Twenty-six hours later found him dressed in a t-shirt and jeans of his own, boots laced nice and tight and weapons anywhere he could hide them. It was a comfort, really, to get back to the basics. Also a comfort was the man that sat across from him at the kitchen table, and fact he was trying his hardest to make things just like the old days. He was failing miserably, but the trying part was nice.

"I'm telling you, it's just like Mrs. Olsen's recipe," Steve insisted. He had yet to apologize for authorizing having his supposed best friend tranqed, and likely never would. He had also yet to mention the incident at all.

Bucky shook his head before he downed about half of the glass of milk set before him. It was some organic, local creamery thing that was close to what they drank daily back in the day, and he found it tolerable. The meatloaf was another matter all together. 

"It's sweet, and weird," he protested. "It's like they took the real thing and added sugar to it." He tried to take another bite, but it just wasn't happening. "Weird," he reiterated.

"Modern ketchup versus the tomato sauce you're used to," Sam guessed. He poured himself a glass of juice and readily stole a piece of the aberration for himself. "It's sweeter, both the breed of tomato they use and what they add to make the sauce."

Bucky liked Wilson, to an extent. Aggravating at times and apparently taking great joy in being so, but also fiercely loyal and a fair deal protective. He seemed to take everything in stride and had no problem explaining anything, no matter how simple of a concept it should have been. So far, they had had conversations ranging from why people wanted free range eggs to how to program a DVR - not that the latter was actually needed once the AI that ran the building huffed and promised that it would record every episode of Moonshiners if and only if he stopped trying to create a bomb out of the actual recording device.

"Steve always did have a sweet tooth. I think that's why he liked the docs so much - one look at that pathetic little mug of his and they'd give him a second lollipop for needing yet another round of shots," he mused.

Steve made a face at him, but there was humor in his eyes when he said, "I'll have you know that I have had a great deal of shots without a single sucker to be had. You were gone so there weren't any around."

Wilson rolled his eyes and he felt the need to join him in the action. He pushed his plate in Rogers' direction knowing the food wouldn't go to waste, abomination or no, and stood to make himself something edible. It had taken him longer than he wanted to admit to feel enough at peace with his current surroundings to actually take from the shared foods and create something of his own. There were still some items he wouldn't touch, both out of not knowing what they were and having used versions of them to poison others in the past, but there always seemed to be an abundance of the basics.

There was bread, fresh from a local bakery because no one present knew how to bake without starting a fire. There was also peanut butter that came in little glass jars from a nearby co-op that didn't use nearly as much sugar in it as the plastic versions with the pre-printed colorful labels right next to it. There was also honey - the good kind with pieces of the comb still stuck in it - a rare sweetness that he could not only tolerate but appreciate.

He made three sandwiches out of the lot and poured a great deal of potato chips from a bag into a bowl to carry back with his bounty. Yes, those were also different than before, but while Steve had a sweet tooth he had always gone for salt and embraced the new variety of flavors, even if some of them were just plain odd. 

He sat down again and began to decimate the offering with his usual efficiency when Steve asked, "Have you thought about what you're going to say to her?"

He knew exactly who Steve was talking about, but let Sam ask, "Who?"

"Dr. Foster's intern, Lewis," Steve replied readily enough. It served to provide a last name to go along with the first. "Bucky here had a run in with her of the unexpected kind yesterday."

"Scared the crap out of her?" Sam guessed.

He shrugged. "She said she was fine, but her heart rate was raised, skin temperature and breathing indicated mild distress," he dutifully reported. Sam liked details, if you were willing to give them to him, and usually could work out a solution that proved both pragmatic and efficient. Still didn't explain why he chose to don a set of metal wings and fly into a fight though. 

"Doc tried to look at him and he wigged out," a new voice chimed in. Barton. He opened and closed a few cupboards and then glared in Bucky's direction. "Again, man? That honey was special delivery."

Bucky felt his lips curl into a smirk. "You shot me," was all he said.

Clint made a face like that was fair, but did add, "You freaked and ran. When we found you, you were spaced out and looked like you were choking an intern. I stand by my choice."

He shoved the last of one of the sandwiches in this mouth and chewed to stall for time, a tactic that would have gotten him beaten or reprogrammed in the past and now was tolerated as though it were expected. "She tried to talk me down. She could have screamed or run or called on that AI of Stark's, but she stood her ground and tried to help."

"She does well in a crisis," Clint agreed. He began making a meal out of similar items, though the sliced banana added to the lot was unexpected. "Usually needs some time and a vice of her choosing after, but she's survived two Nordic invasions, Foster's homemade tech, and an uncaffeinated Stark raiding their lab and held her own." 

"Coffee," Sam said, bringing them back on track. "The good kind. She likes the weird ones too - the kind that take like five minutes to rattle off the name for a trained barista - but loves a good cup of coffee."

"According to Nat, she finished off over half a bottle of Don Julio on her own last night, so coffee might be appreciated," Clint agreed. He paused and snagged the honey back with a mock look of indignation before he added, "Might want to bring one for Jane as well."

Bucky nodded as he processed that. "As an apology to her superior," he guessed. A sound if slightly infantile tactic. They were both civilians though, so perhaps this was the norm.

Clint's scoff was echoed by Sam and even Steve smirked. "More of a bestie than superior, and more because Foster finished off the other half of the bottle than as bribe," Clint amended. He poured a great deal of honey into a mug of tea he had obtained from parts unknown to add to his lunch. It smelled familiar and possibly desirable. "Nat finished off a bottle of her own and still managed to wipe the floor with me this morning. Warned to keep noise down to a minimum in deference to their hangovers. Definitely a coffee kind of day."

Bucky contemplated the advice as well as where Barton could have potentially hidden his find as he finished his meal.


	3. Chapter 3

Darcy rolled out of bed around ten. She gave herself an hour to shower and dress and let the Tylenol kick in. Her hair was brushed, her clothes were clean, and she even remembered shoes before she left for the lab, knowing she'd still beat Jane there because she might be tough enough to be Thor's girlfriend but even she was not strong enough to overcome a hangover quite that quickly. Also, for like the thousandth time since they got this gig, she was more than a little thankful for an apartment at the fancy schmancy tower. There was no way she would have survived public transit even if she could afford a place anywhere close to this particular zip code. Stark had been appalled at the idea anyway, like she was affronting his hospitality or something, and so she had ended up with what was probably supposed to be one of the guest suites to call her very own.

Someone had been kind enough to leave an electric kettle filled with water and waiting to be plugged in next to a selection of teas and a box of shortbread cookie-like things on the counter in the lab. She'd had worse breakfasts in her life, so she shoved a rectangle of buttery goodness into her mouth and debated the merit of tea versus something stronger. She had a feeling herbal flowery-ness was not going to cut it, and debated hitting the coffee shop in the lobby for something firmly in the espresso range of the spectrum. She earned an actual paycheck now - the person she met from Stark Industries had turned interesting colors at the prospect of her being unpaid and privy to private intel - so she was fairly certain she could afford the indulgence on a regular basis.

Jane wandered in far earlier than any bookie would have placed money on, but had the good grace to look disheveled and tired, the dark circles under her eyes coordinating nicely with the lopsided binder for her hair. She was dressed though - flannel, jeans and all, even if there was a fairly good chance those were slippers and not quilted ballet flats. She grunted at the kettle, but got it started before she plopped down to wait for it to finish, box of shortbread clutched to her like a lifeline. "We need frosting," she muttered as she shoved a piece into her mouth. Around the crumbs, she added, "Or like jelly or jam if we're going to pretend this counts as breakfast."

The thing of it was, they had lackeys that they could send for precisely that, or even for a real meal. Well, the building as a whole did and several had helped out when needed more than once. Both of them were so used to lack of funds and lack of resources though, that it seemed silly to waste the lackeys on something so trivial when Darcy was fairly certain there was at least a leftover packet of syrup from when she had felt ambitious and had gotten up early enough to grab McDonald's for breakfast about a week ago.

They were in the middle of both a rough analysis of a new finding and dipping cookies into high fructose corn syrupy goodness when there was a knock on their door. Given that A) the doors were not actually closed and B) no one on this floor tended to knock so much as just barge in, she found that odd. Jane waved a sticky hand to motion whoever it was in, but Darcy turned to figure out who it was for nicety and safety reasons. She had been assured by Natasha when she once came to pick up Jane that assassins didn't usually knock but, considering Natasha herself had knocked and her past was public, Darcy tended not to believe her. 

The over the top fake innocent act had really been a give away.

It was not the redhead she really should have recognized the day before save for her mind being mush waiting for them, but tall, dark, and deadly instead. Well, kind of tall, wearing dark clothing, and looked like he could probably punch through a mammoth, so that totally counted.

"Anyone important?" Jane asked. She shoved a loose piece of hair out of her face. It stayed, possibly now glued to the others with syrup.

"Just an assassin come to kill us all," Darcy called over her shoulder as she went to see what the guy wanted. She caught a flinch at her words and didn't know if it was because of his freak out or something else and figured she should probably learn to watch what she said since she was apparently now routinely around people with checkered pasts and not just of the pharmaceutical type. 

That reminded her, she totally needed to check on Selvig.

"I, um, came to apologize," the guy said, embarrassment coloring his tone. She could so get used to that voice. The body it was attached to wasn't that bad either now that she got to see more than just an extreme closeup of an admittedly good looking face.

He might have said more, but she was too focused on what he held in his hands. "Is that a Caramel Cookie Crumble with two extra shots and extra whip? Because if it is, all is totally forgiven," she swore, hands already out to try to grab the treat away from the possibly deadly stranger.

He handed one of the two cups he held over to her and offered a dry chuckle that didn't quite reflect in his eyes. "I asked them what your favorite was. Asked them what the Doc you work for's favorite was too, but they said no amaretto before three."

That sounded about right. Jane's amaretto shots tended to have more than just flavor to them.

She took the second cup as well and handed it off to her boss, earning a heartfelt, "I don't know who he is, but we're keeping him."

She turned back around to thank their mysterious benefactor and found him staring again, though this time she couldn't even pretend it was inappropriate for levity's sake. It wasn't at her locket either, at least she didn't think so since the angle was slightly off. She didn't want another zone out anymore than she wanted to have Captain America tranq a guy in her lab just for bringing her coffee, so she made a point of raising the drink slowly, flipping her hair back behind her at the same time with her free and thankfully non-sticky hand, offering multiple types of stimuli to break his gaze.

Unfortunately, he returned right back to staring the moment she lowered her cup. Definitely not the locket as that sucker was now threaded through a chunk of her hair.

She didn't need to ask what he found so interesting. Well, she would have, but he whispered, "I hurt you." There wasn't so much horror as resignation tinging his words, and somehow that made it worse.

She stop trying to untangle the knot of hair one-handed to slap a hand over her throat. Possibly a bit harder than originally intended. "Oh, the bruise! That's nothing!" she insisted. She had seen it that morning, the faintest discoloration from where his thumb had pressed when he had first found her. "Seriously, I have a worse one from misjudging where my chair was Monday. Caught myself on the desk but, bam, elbow is totally hyper-colored ." She raised it up for him to see the purplish mess versus the barely there blue for himself.

He didn't seem convinced. "I could have..."

"You could have totally faceplanted somewhere in the state you were in," she agreed as if that was where head been going with it. "You found me instead. Seriously, my hangover and hunger pains are worse than that thing." She'd have nightmares about it for at least a week but, other than that, she was good. Lewis women were like that - too much crap to get done to dwell on things that had little lasting impact in their lives.

He still seemed unconvinced and offered something that sounded vaguely like a profuse apology, at least until her stomach rumbled loud enough that Jane snorted from a good twenty paces behind her. "You need food, not just coffee," he guessed, seeming far less like a contrite assassin if still a little bit quiet now. Maybe because she gave him something else to think about. Maybe because he was still looking for ways to make amends. She wasn't sure, but she wasn't giving up her sugary goodness.

"You will pry this cup from my cold dead hands," she said cheerfully. She slammed back too much too fast, but it was worth it to not lose it.

He shook his head, but there was a faint curl to his lips. "That's all yours, doll. Promise. I just meant... Is she dipping shortbread in syrup?" He sounded well and truly aghast, as though that was far more of a crime than anything he might have done the day before.

"Eh, we make do," Darcy said with a shrug before taking another sip. She wasn't even upset at the name; the way he drawled it out made it kinda kind and adorable versus creepy.

"How do you survive?" he asked, humor creeping into his tone now. His eyebrows were raised, eyes almost literally twinkling, and his zone out was well and truly foiled. She wasn't positive what did it, but would take her wins when she could. "Does Stark hire people to check you for scurvy every few weeks?"

"I totally had an orange yesterday! And we had limes, or at least a lime, with the tequila last night!" Jane called from where she sat engrossed in files of both the paper and electronic types. "Ooh, and Darcy had a Fanta last week, so we're good."

He snorted and muttered, "No idea what that means, but I'm guessing it's something my nutritionist would ban." He shook his head before pushing some of his hair out of his eyes. He, at least, had no fear of stickiness. He glanced around the room as if making up his mind before he nodded to himself and looked back to her. "I'll be right back," he promised, and turned to march back off to wherever he had come from.

"You're only welcome if you bring more coffee!" she shouted after him. It was a lie, but he seemed like the gullible type, or at least she could pretend he was for a while. She had coffee with the slightest chance of getting more soon, so it was all good.

She didn't know what she was expecting, if anything at all, but it most certainly was not for him to return just over a half hour later, bag and tray in tow. The tray held two more coffees identical to what he had originally brought. The bag held two bagel sandwiches, stuffed with eggs and cheese and something that might have been spinach - she wasn't always on top of her greens.

He handed out the sandwiches and said, "Barton promised me these are the best cure for a hangover. Normally, I wouldn't trust a word he says but both Wilson and Natalia agreed, so I figured it was worth a try. Better than the raw egg in milk Farnsworth used to swear by anyway." He shuddered, apparently a memory of some ancient form of protein drink more horrific than even their eating habits.

"Keep him," Jane ordered as she took her sandwich. "Find a way. Handcuffs, sexual favors, sexual favors with handcuffs, I don't care. He understands the importance of caffeine and grease after Tequila Tuesdays and that's just not something you let go."

Darcy laughed, but tried to rein it in when she saw the poor guy's head dip slightly, just enough for some hair to fall forward again, even if he didn't give anything else away. "Sorry," she eventually managed. "This is why we're not allowed in public and usually shoved away in a lab. Long hours, little visitation, it makes you crack. That was a joke, by the way," she rushed to correct when he looked both confused and righteously angry or something.

"Uh-huh," he nodded, but didn't fully look like he was comprehending everything.

She put down her sandwich but not her drink, and wiped the worst of the grease off onto her jeans. She offered out a hand and said, "I'm Darcy by the way."

He took it well enough and he had one hell of a grip even though she was fairly certain he was holding back. "James Barnes," he returned. This he seemed comfortable enough with, hint of a smirk and tilt of his head and she didn't think he was actively trying to flirt, but that was just a default setting for awkward social settings. She'd done it. Jane had done it. She hadn't failed nearly as miserably as Jane had, but had offered to sock the asshole for her when he "teasingly" mocked her for it.

"Pleasure to meet you, for real this time," she smiled. When he smiled back, she figured it had been the right tactic. "I've got to say, Mr. Barnes, you sure know how to make one hell of an introduction."


	4. Chapter 4

He wasn't quite certain why, but he found himself wanting to check up on the two crazy lab rats more often than was probably acceptable for a man who nearly choked one of them in a blackout flashback. Maybe it was because they were "normal" in a sense. Maybe it was because they were some of the very few non-Avengers/non-formerly SHIELD personnel he had become acquainted with since his return. It wasn't like he went out that much, not in the socialization sort of way. He knew both women had a concrete hold on the world of heroes, and yet they seemed to have no problem portraying a touchstone of normalcy, providing a reason the team did what they did, for lack of a better explanation.

He had few memories of back during the war, though it was possible some of his nightmares were actually remembrances of reality. There was always a farmer trying to survive by doing what he knew best, a seamstress that would patch up a pair of trousers as thanks for driving off a squadron of Nazis. They always seemed to appear just when he needed them, just when he began to question what they were doing and why. He would see someone just trying to live their life, surrounded by all the death and destruction and hell on earth that they didn't ask for, and he would know that he made the right choice and that he needed to go back out to fight, to save the world for the people who knew how to live in it.

He finished watching a news report on investment companies routing funds to terrorists instead of their clients' retirement accounts, and felt the need to do something, even if it was just delivering coffee and making small talk with someone remotely friendly who wouldn't drudge up escapades of death and destruction. It wasn't technically spying if he checked to see if the women were up in their lab first, even if it felt like it. It turned out to be a good thing he did as Dr. Foster had left the building as a whole nearly an hour before and Ms. Lewis was in the gym.

He had already worked out that morning, but really could not contain his curiosity as to what the sugar and snark loving woman would define as fitness. He donned a clean shirt and track pants, tied on a pair of sneakers that cost several times more than his monthly paycheck had been back in the day, and headed on down.

What he found was Ms. Lewis in a pair of leggings and a tank top that fit like the skivvies of years past and showed off far more of her than her previous outfits had. She was running on a treadmill, long hair pulled up into a ponytail that swung in time with her hips and her strides, glasses folded next to a water bottle and towel on a nearby bench. A glance showed she had been at it for twelve minutes per the clock on the readout. Another glance showed she had in a set of tiny purple headphones and was still oblivious to his arrival.

He wondered what she was listening to and found that, if he concentrated, he could make out a steady beat of drums with an undercurrent of what might have been bass. If he concentrated harder, he was certain he could make out the words, even if he had no reference point to understand who or what she was listening to. There was another sound though, not the steady fall of feet on a motorized surface that should have drowned out anything else, but a deep and steady thrum that he was fairly certain was her heartbeat. It was not quite in time to the music or her movements, and seemed rather fast for the minimal amount of work she was doing.

He liked it though, a steady pulse that defined her life and movement. He found his breathing match up with every third beat, then every fourth. Steady. In. Out. Again. His eyes tracked the swish of hair and his ears tracked the beat and he found himself sinking further and deeper into a haze.

A haze that was quickly broken when she slapped the large red stop button and swore, "Fuck!" loud enough to echo off the walls and possibly equipment.

He blinked himself back to reality, unnerved by the fact the little clock now said nineteen minutes and forty-seven seconds as he was in no way aware that much time had passed. He watched her take two more steps on the now slowly moving belt and heard her mutter, "Close enough."

"I won't tell if you won't tell," he promised with a grin right as she began to turn around. 

She jumped and tripped, but caught herself on the side of the machine, headphones now dangling low and cumbersome. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that sneaking up on people is mean?" she asked accusingly. She fumbled for her water bottle but couldn't quite manage the cap and nearly knocked her glasses to the floor with the action.

He strode across the empty space and took the bottle from her to easily manage the task. "It's my job to be sneaky," he said and handed her back the bottle. "It's how I stay alive."

She gulped down about a third of its contents, a tiny dribble escaping to her lips. She swiped at it as though affronted that it hadn't ended up in her mouth and then took a gasping breath. "Yeah, well, this is supposed to keep me alive too. The amount of weirdness in our lives mixed with living in Weirdness Central means there's a good chance I'll have to run for it someday. I'd rather not croak just trying to make the attempt."

He couldn't fault her logic on that one, so he nodded in agreement. He did, however, feel the need to point out, "Any escape route is unlikely to be on so even of a surface."

"And it probably won't come with built-in fans either but, hey, it's the try that counts, right?"

He thought about her weakness, the way her heart still beat too fast, the way her face was far too red and the way she still had trouble choking down air after so short of an exertion. She hadn't noticed his approach or how long he had stood there, hadn't noticed anything until he spoke. Had she been a target, she would have been dead long before they came anywhere near to having this conversation. 

He found himself uncomfortable with that line of thinking.

"I could help you," he offered. "Train you. Help you stand a chance the next time evil comes knocking." As long as the evil wasn't him. He held no promises there.

She shook her head and he tried not to stare at the long strands as they swung, the way a few stuck themselves to her damp neck from the action. "I am so out of your league," she protested. He believed her, but possibly not for the same reasons she was thinking. "You're like all super hero-y and stuff. You save lives and I save Jane's work when she forgets to push the button. I can't shoot, the only knives I use are for cooking, and I hate to sweat. Don't think this is going to work out well for you."

He tried not to smirk at her reasoning. Given the way she narrowed her eyes, he might have failed. "No knives or guns. If we're doing our jobs right, you shouldn't ever need them. Just want to make sure that when it comes time to run, you have a chance," he reasoned. 

The offer was out of his mouth before he had time to process it. His shrink would say he was looking for someone to save given his inability to save himself, but would probably support his taking an active interest in something other than honing his skills and avoiding sleep. His shrink would also make disparaging remarks about training and endurance and turning a civilian into something more. 

His shrink could go take a short step off a tall cliff for all he cared. 

"Do I get rewarded with cookies? Jane can get me to do damn near anything for a good chocolate chip."

"Cookies, shakes, those coffee drinks you like, all on the table," he agreed. "But I will get you to run outside and not on one of those things," he pointed out with a rough gesture towards the treadmill.

She frowned. "Outside doesn't have AC."

"Outside has a path past an ice cream cart with mocha java fudge swirl," he bartered. His average runs were far longer than twenty minutes on a steady surface but he could adapt, or at least augment. Plus the cart also had plain old vanilla that was made damn near the same as he remembered. "Twice a week, Sunday and Wednesday. We work up to outside."

"Monday and Thursday," she wheedled. "Tequila Tuesdays are a sacred thing and neither they nor their resulting hangovers are to be trifled with."

"Deal," he agreed. He offered out his hand and she shook it readily enough. Of course, she also let go of it soon enough when he said, "Now hop on that treadmill, Ms. Lewis, it's a Thursday."

"I think I hate you already," she grumbled. She put down her water bottle though, and poked at the controls to start up the belt again. She fumbled with her headphones before she added, "Also, it's Darcy. If you're going to be seeing me sweaty and gross twice a week, we can lose the formality."

He debated giving her two hand weights, only a few pounds each as she was just beginning, but decided to start simple for now. Instead, he reached around her to change both the resistance and the interval settings on the machine. "Okay, Darcy it is," he agreed. "Do another fifteen on this and I will personally make you a shake."

She sighed dramatically, but started to move. "The things I do for ice cream," she muttered, and this time he didn't try to hide the smirk.

* * *

An hour later had her freshly showered and leaning against the counter in the kitchen, bemoaning a cramp in her leg that wasn't really there while he snuck protein powder into the concoction he made for her. He had seen what she thought passed as healthy - if she was going to actually train she needed far more than just chocolate to survive on. He also tossed in some blueberries for the antioxidants and threw some more onto a piece of sponge cake left over from the night before. She eyed the offering warily and added approximately equal parts whipped cream to sponge cake before she dug in.

He turned back to the blender to make a version for himself. He added the ingredients and pressed the button and tried not to flinch from the noise. The grind and swish, the chop of the delicate fruit, it reminded him of something else entirely. Blades against skin, the press of solid steel against a forgiving surface, the roar of a propeller in the background. He told himself that was the past, to concentrate on the present. He focused on the spin of the blades, the slight gleam of metal against the milky white, the streak of bluish purple slowly spiraling and spreading.

It was just fruit, he knew this. He also knew he was damned glad he hadn't chosen the plump strawberries from the bowl in the fridge.

The noise ceased abruptly and he had to blink himself back to his surroundings, the echo of the motor still a tangible thing. He looked down to the row of buttons and switches, knew his own hands were gripped hard against the counter and were in no way responsible for the reset. A pale finger tipped with chipped magenta nail polish moved away with deliberate slowness.

"Pretty sure that sucker is decimated, Mister Trainer," Darcy told him. Her posture held the forced relaxedness of someone ready to bolt and her eyes gave away a thread of fear. He reminded himself of how little time had passed since he had cornered her in an abandoned hallway and she had every right to be frightened of what amounted to a stranger losing touch with reality while she was once again alone with him.

"Got lost there for a moment," he admitted. His hands didn't shake because he wouldn't let them.

"Yeah, well, the soothing sounds of chopping shit to pieces can do that to a man," she said glibly. Some of the tension bled from her though, and he followed her gaze to find Steve standing in the doorway, not quite in attack stance and not quite not. He was willing to place even money on the AI tattling on him.

"How's it going, Buck?" Steve asked with far too much casualness.

He cleared his throat when the words didn't immediately come and managed, "We're making shakes. You want one, punk?"

It was Darcy that managed to get the massive shoulders to slump back down to something reasonable when she said, "We've got a deal going on: he makes me run so I might possibly survive a Hydra attack and then he pays me in sugar and dairy. I don't think he's figured out how deals work yet; don't ruin it for me."

Steve chuckled, but there was still a strain of tension to it. "I won't," he promised. "So is this a deal you're making with all the interns, or just the pretty brunettes?"

Bucky frowned, it wasn't like that and Steve knew it. To imply otherwise was to cause trouble.

"Better be just me," Darcy huffed. He was starting to like the way she spoke simply to break up the silence. It worked well for him. "If I have to run and lift weights and all that crap, I'm not sharing my ice cream with anyone. Though I'm totally telling Jane that Captain America called me pretty." She tossed her hair back with a flourish and he managed to get a hand up in time to stop it from swinging around and falling into her recently made shake.

He poured his own drink from the blender into a waiting glass. She had been correct, there was pretty much nothing left to identify the blue as once belonging to berries. He sipped at the concoction to avoid answering Steve and did not wince at the texture as he had consumed far worse in his time. He was trying to make friends, that was all. It was precisely what everyone had been telling him to do for months. He found a person that just happened to be a dame who made conversation easy mainly by being the one in charge of it. It had started as an apology and now he found something he could offer her so that, hopefully, the next time he had what Steve carefully called "an incident" she might be able to get the hell away from him before he did something he regretted.

Considering he had now had two around her and she had not even tried to escape, he doubted the soundness of this plan. Maybe he should start giving her survival tips while she trained, the first being to run away from the crazy not-so-ex-assassin who tended to forget just where and who he was at any given moment if his mind decided to become preoccupied with other things.

Steve let it drop, but it came as no surprise to anyone when Natalia just happened to be in the gym when Monday rolled around again. Or when Barton joined her about halfway through. Or when even Foster stopped by to poke at one of the elliptical machines.

"Oh, goody, more people to see me sweat," Darcy grumbled, but dutifully accepted the hand weights he held out for her.

"Don't worry, Clint knows better than to make a comment," Natalia assured her. "And if he doesn't, it can be a learning opportunity." Her grin was all teeth and Barton made a face of mock fear.

The two stayed on the far side of the gym and Foster far closer, but Bucky knew they each kept an eye on him all the same. He also knew there would be someone waiting for them in the kitchen when they went for their post-workout shake. He really expected no less. 

He just had to figure out if he was grateful.


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy ached. Apparently, just running wasn't enough, at least not for James. He had her doing some extra stretching and had increased the weight work, nothing like the huge amounts she saw everyone else doing, but a combo of five to ten pounds at a time with a threat that he called a promise that she would eventually work her way up from there. She understood his reasoning that she'd probably need to carry something while she ran, be it research or equipment or Jane, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

On the plus side, the ice cream rewards kept coming, as did the coffee on a semi-regular basis, diet and fitness being two completely different things as far as James was concerned and she wasn't about to argue with him. At the very least, there was always something waiting for her on a Wednesday mornings, so she really couldn't complain. Well, shouldn't and couldn't were two very different things so, yes, she still did complain, at length, to Jane.

"If you don't like it, you can stop. It's not like he's making you do it," Jane pointed out. There was a pause, then, "He's not, right?"

Darcy shook her head and then pried a piece of ribbon free from where it had wound between her glasses and earrings. That particular style choice was not working for her in the least, so she removed it all together. "No, it's fine," she reluctantly admitted. "I know it's good for me, it's just I didn't realize how horribly out of shape I was until soldier boy told me lifting a bottle did not count as a valid rep. Besides, I think it's good for him too. Like, him helping someone is helping him cope with his trauma or some shit."

Jane narrowed her eyes at her. "I always forget you were pretty much two psych courses away from a double major. At this point just go back and take them and then maybe people won't be surprised when you pull this Freud stuff on them." 

It was a point of contention with them, albeit a mild one. Darcy had finally earned her Masters after the incident in England when SHIELD hadn't been able to non-disclosure her off of being seen on international television holding the equipment that helped save the world. Her advisors had finally granted her the credits and the pretty piece of overpriced paper. That she chose to stay working for Jane versus continuing on to something bigger and supposedly better had been a discussion and a half that ended up with loud voices and tearful hugs and quite a few snarky comments about a certain scientist not being able to survive without her.

"Not Freud, there's no cigars, metaphorically or real," Darcy assured her. She grabbed the ponytail binder from her wrist and pulled her hair back away from her face. Jane had a soldering iron and several small pieces of metal out today, and that never ended well. "I don't know, I just think the guy just wants a friend, you know? One that doesn't have the security clearance to know all the crap he's been through and judge him on it."

Jane sighed and put the iron down. "You hacked his file, didn't you?"

"Not all of it!" Darcy insisted. "Just enough to check a few things and then I closed it like a good girl." The few things were verification of just who he was, and a vague hint of what he had been through. She didn't need to catalogue his scars, mental and physical, but wanted to know if there were some triggers she should avoid. Besides, knowing that he really was from the forties made some of his word and chivalry choices make far more sense. Knowing he had some serious PTSD was just common sense after being around him for like a minute.

She let Jane pick the iron back up and start building whatever it was she was working on and even resisted telling her that they now had an actual budget and could requisition things instead of making half-assed versions of them out of left over pieces from past attempts. Sometimes she thought Jane actually liked making them for herself, creating something physical versus all the theoretical work she usually immersed herself in. Not to mention that they were usually just wonky enough to do something the pre-made version never would have managed. 

She kept those thoughts to herself though because the one time she delved into that particular blackhole, Jane had signed her up for those final two classes and it was a bitch and a half to get out of them.

The wail of an alarm drew her out of her thoughts. A sniff of the air told her a possible source because Stark ventilation was usually good enough not to make the place smell like freshmen chem lab during finals week. Jane turned off the iron on the off chance whatever was airborne was flammable, and Darcy smacked the switch to up the setting on the fan while the automatic system closed the doors. "Doc Savanti?" she guessed.

"He got a shipment in yesterday," Jane confirmed. "Someday he'll learn not to play with all his new toys at once."

The wails continued and she sent the message that they were fine and functional and all that even though the building was sophisticated enough that it had probably already provided a far more detailed version of the same. Then the waiting game began of will they or won't they need to use the emergency exits or safe room. The safe room had its own air supply along with everything else but it was a pain to get to, claustrophobic as hell, and she had only really used it once during a test. The emergency exits were a far more likely option, especially if the Doc had set something on fire, but that meant possible brief exposure to whatever he had released plus a crap ton of stairs. So they waited to see if the automated systems could handle it before they made a run for it. No need to panic just because a hyperaware system did. It wouldn't be their first and probably wouldn't be their last time at this particular rodeo.

An hour and a half into the wait and she was getting annoyed. No all clear had been called even though she could hear the pounding of footsteps and banging of systems and all that. She was getting a headache, possibly from boredom and possibly because she had not yet had her third cup of coffee for the day. Her ribbon hadn't been long enough to play Cat's Cradle with and there were only so many preset computer games someone could play before they went nuts.

She was about to call down for a status check when the doors finally opened to reveal Natasha with a gas mask hanging at her side. "You two all right in here?" the redhead asked with a quick glance around to confirm things for herself.

"Going through caffeine withdrawal like whoa, but other than that we're fine," Darcy assured her. "What the hell happened?"

"Gas leak. A certain scientist is about to have a one on one lesson in protocol, again," Natasha shrugged, looking all fluid and perfect despite the fact she would have been trawling around the tower with her face covered in polymer and rubber for however long. Darcy, by contrast, felt sweaty and clammy and she had just been sitting there playing Mahjong while Jane reread reports.

Darcy stretched and tried to get the blood flowing again from sitting for so long and crack her back at the same time. "Savanti's about to have a lesson in getting his ass kicked by an angry little astrophysicist if he pulls this again," she corrected, Jane nodding at her side.

A new face appeared, all stubbly and worried. James sniffed the air and then zoned out for a good twenty count, eyes wide and calculating even if they looked miles away from reality, right up until Natasha nudged him with her elbow. He glared and huffed a breath that turned into a cough that nearly made him double over. "They've been exposed," he announced when he could. He then matched Natasha's look of incredulousness with one of his own. "You can't smell that? It's like acid in my lungs. Forget smell, I can taste it."

She pulled a small device from her belt. "Fraction of a percent, they should be fine with some fresh air and lack of your enhanced senses," she waived off his concern. She then motioned for the door and said, "Come on, ladies, let's let the place air out. You can come back when the readings are flat zero."

Darcy pushed herself up from the chair and took a step towards the door, surprised when she wobbled and more surprised when the room seemed to wobble with her. She had neither heels nor booze anywhere near her, so she felt she had the right to be confused. James was at her side in a second though and righted her even though he still didn't look quite steady on his own feet. "Barton, get your ass in here and get Foster, I've got Lewis," he said into apparent nothingness. Someone had been on the other end of the line though, because the man who insisted she call him Clint despite so many alternatives offered by the others - sans fancy bow - appeared in less than a minute, during which time she found herself swept up into the arms of her would-be trainer.

"While this is all galant and everything, I'm fine," she insisted. She let go of him for a second to gesture to Jane, who was getting similar treatment from the guy she now saw actually had plenty of weaponry without the bow on him. The room swayed again and she resisted the urge to grip onto the obvious. "Plus, it ain't like I'm a delicate flower here. Put me down and I'll walk on my own." It wasn't that he was having any trouble holding her, Super Soldier and all that, but her own weight pressing against his arms was less than comfortable, especially the unforgiving metal one that didn't shape to her bends and curves quite right. Either that, or she was just hypersensitive from whatever the hell she was exposed to.

He wrinkled his nose. "You reek of it."

"Yeah, well, you're not so fresh yourself," she countered. She turned in his arms to find a slightly amused Natasha and a worried Clint attempting to hold Jane in a similar manner. He was strong enough but didn't have Thor's giant stature so the sight was just plain wrong in her mind. The commentary and need to adjust while she flailed kept her would-be savior from hyper-focusing though, so she called it a win.

"Prolonged exposure, even at these low levels, without proper ventilation because their fan turned to internal circulation when lockdown was initiated," he reported. He looked down to her and added, "I'm willing to bet your headache isn't just the need for coffee." Of course he had heard that. Of course he was going to use that against her.

"We'll get them checked out," Clint promised. He turned to Natasha and asked, "Can you handle the last two floors on your own, or do you want to wait for us?"

"I've got Stark's security minions and Rogers will be up as soon as he's done giving Savanti the 'Captain America is disappointed in you' speech; I'll be fine," she replied. Sure enough, just outside in the hallway, a cadre of at least ten men and women stood at the ready. She looked back to the civilian women and added, "Sorry, girls, you two get stuck with the mother hens. I'm going to run away while I can."

Darcy was at least reassured that the protection extended to all when James called over his shoulder, "Put your damn mask on," and the sentiment was echoed by Clint with a few added pieces of vocabulary, most of which were profane.

* * *

It was another three hours before she was released back to her rooms. Three hours of oxygen masks and finger pricks and further lack of caffeine. She was given water with a threat of a saline line, and eventually some fancy drink that tasted vaguely like the orange version of Gatorade, but even more tasteless. She was also given control of a remote for a decently sized screen when both she and Jane threatened mutiny via boredom. They were to report any anomalies and we're still required to stop by the next day to get poked at again but, other than that, they were finally free to go. By the time they were released, six other scientists from neighboring floors were still getting checked out and all wore matching expressions of annoyance. She handed off the remote to Nichols because Carrie was always good for a laugh and wished her luck while she tucked tail and ran like a good girl.

"Now do you see why I avoid this place when I can?" Clint asked while he held the door open to escort them back upstairs. They had required a draw from him as well, apparently doubting he had followed actual protocol and wore his mask during the initial leak. She was frankly surprised he hadn't outed Natasha out of spite.

"Not exactly my favorite place in the world either, pal," James agreed with a grunt. He had stayed by their sides through it all though, offering a glare when some poor nurse tried to take a reading on him. She wasn't sure if they actually got one or not because Clint had intervened and the new episode of some reality court show had started. Jane and she always invented their own backstories for those things, which made them far more entertaining.

She shuffled along beside them in the little slippers and the little jammies they had given her to change into while they checked her clothing for residue. No full decontamination procedures were needed thanks to Natasha getting an actual reading and them knowing just what chemicals were at play, and for that she was glad. The jammies weren't the best but she was keeping the slippers for herself - they were hella comfortable. "We totally missed lunch, didn't we?" she lamented as the elevator doors slid shut. She was still slightly lightheaded but was blaming that on hunger at this point, if she even admitted to feeling it in the first place, which she was not nearly stupid enough to do around her current company. It was even build-your-own burger day in the cafeteria and she was famous for making the most of that.

"We'll order you something in," James assured her. At the raised eyebrows he received from Clint, he defended himself with, "What? It's burger day. That's just a crying shame to miss."

"Shit, really?" Clint asked, now fully on board with the plan. "I'll get Manny's to deliver if you can wait a half hour or so."

James nodded as if that was reasonable. "They're going to want to scrub to get the rest of that crap off them, so we should be good."

"Isn't it nice that the menfolk are making all the decisions for us poor and unsoundly womenfolk?" Jane asked with what was probably supposed to be an old time accent. She batted her eyes before she rolled them in Darcy's direction. "Whatever would we do without them?"

"Become a Noble prize winner with like a bazillion degrees and the inability to make toast without burning it?" Darcy guessed. Jane swatted at her, but James stopped the hit. She reached around him to swat back, but he stopped that one too.

"No disrespect was intended, ladies," Clint promised. "Though I'd recommend a rinse down just for peace of mind. Always makes me feel better anyway. If you want, and only if you want, we can order in while you wash up."

"It comes out of your budget and not ours," Jane said pointedly.

Barton huffed. "What are you talking about? It comes out of Savanti's." 

That seemed perfectly reasonable, at least to Darcy, so she shrugged and nodded in agreement. 

It turned out they wouldn't be allowed back into the lab for at least the rest of the day anyway. Stark was on a rampage about the filters not working correctly and possibly redesigning the whole system while she enjoyed a burger damn near dripping with bleu cheese and bacon. Eventually, it would devolve into another match of Foster versus Stark and the need to continue her research versus his need to poke at something that wasn't really that broken anyway as their door had been open to let the fumes into the room in the first place. She was betting on a draw: he'd think up something to augment and give her some fancy computer to work from any room she wanted to in the interim and she'd pretend it was a hindrance while working in yoga pants and a sweatshirt with a tub of Chunky Monkey at her side.

By seven that night, Clint owed her a twenty and James was handing out the Ben and Jerry's.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky was contemplating his bowl of Shredded Wheat when Steve wandered into the kitchen and raised an eyebrow in his direction. He pushed the half-eaten soggy mess to the side and sighed, "I think Lewis is rubbing off on me." 

The second eyebrow rose to join the first and anyone who thought Rogers was the picture of all American innocence had never hidden under the bleachers with him while the cheerleaders held their practices back in the day. 

"Not like that, jerk," Bucky grumbled and threw a balled up napkin at him because he could.

Steve just laughed and let it bounce off his nose, no harm done. "What's a guy to think? You've been spending enough time with her lately, plus your love of brunettes really is legendary. As is your love of blondes. And redheads. And you did flirt with Hazel that time Mitch dunked her pigtails in the inkwells and she tried to wash it out and it turned all blue." He paused and reached for the fridge before he added, "Maybe it's just dames, or anything in a skirt. How'd you feel about Dernier when we dressed him up and..."

He managed to block the soggy lump of wheat with the door, but only just. He looked down at the mess and made a face. "That's just gross."

"That's the problem!" Bucky agreed. He stood to rinse out his bowl, hating to waste the food but unable to stomach it that morning. "It's bland and dry until it's bland and lumpy. I used to have this stuff all the time when I was out on my own. Now I'm actually starting to want some of that crap everyone else eats all the time. It can't be good for you, it still doesn't taste right, but it's better than this schmaltz."

Steve looked understanding, but not enough to clean up the mess that now surrounded him. "I had the same problem when I first got back," he admitted. He pulled out a carton of eggs and a slab of bacon and set them on the counter. He tossed the bread to Bucky and motioned to the toaster, apparently offering something hardier if he was willing to pitch in. "You go from rations to Army food to the chemical free-for-all that we have now? I kept getting headaches and stomach aches and still crammed it in because it was there for the taking, you know?"

Bucky knew. He had done something similar when he broke free from Hydra and lived on his own for a while. So many options and so little knowledge about those options made for some truly awful decisions. It's why he had gone back to what he knew, or at least had until recently. It made sense he'd eventually expand his palate from there, but he had a feeling the speed of this expansion was directly related to a certain new acquaintance in his life. She just simply handed him things to try and he did. He wasn't sure if it was an actual level of trust with a virtual stranger, or the fact she always made a point to either have the same thing herself, or to steal some off of his first as if to prove it was safe to consume. That boss of hers would mutter things about social conditioning and whatnot, but it was hard to tell if she was using some of that fancy learning of hers on him or just honestly being kind.

"What'd you do?" he asked as he started the first round of toast. The machine made an obscene amount ridiculously quickly, and he abused that knowledge often.

Steve grabbed a pan and set it on the stove. "I found a happy medium," he shrugged. "Tried a few things that worked, tried a few that didn't. Think of the meatloaf: yeah, it's different than what we had, but it's close enough for me. You weren't there yet, might never be, at least with that one thing." He turned on the burner and grabbed some more supplies. "You poke at it and regret it."

"Please say you're not talking about your sex lives?" a new voice chimed in. Natalia wandered over to the stove and adjusted the heat before she made a face at the mess on the floor. "Really, boys? What are you, six?" she muttered, but pointedly did not clean it up for them.

Bucky took the hint and wiped up both the door and the floor. "Food," he replied. "It tastes weird, but sometimes I want it to."

She leaned against the counter and contemplated that. "Could be your senses. You're tasting the details the rest of us ignore," she mused. She looked up at him pointedly and added, "And you can't pretend that's not an option after your show yesterday."

He went to defend himself, but found he didn't have to. Steve shook his head and said, "I'm with Buck on that one, Natasha. I made it up there maybe ten minutes after you left and could smell it. It was almost as strong as in Savanti's lab itself. Stark's still trying to figure out why."

Vindicated, he turned back to the topic at hand. "I've tried a few things, but haven't liked most of them. And Barton was just plain cruel with the vindaloo."

She smiled at that. "You pissed him off and he took advantage. Don't underestimate him."

"Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that," he waved her off. He caught the thankfully wrapped stick of butter Rogers tossed at him and then the knife Natalia chucked in his direction with a smirk. He set to work greasing up the toast as soon as it was ready, always preferring the butter all nice and melted versus in hard pats just sitting on top.

"So what is this thing you've got going on with Lewis?" she eventually asked when they began to plate up the meal.

He had to pause before he admitted, "I honestly don't know." He carried his plate and hers over to the table while she poured fresh glasses of milk. "She treats me like a person, has no expectations of me whatsoever. It's kinda nice. Even if she doesn't have the sense to cut and run when she should."

"She handles you well," Natalia said, eyes daring him to disagree. A glance to Steve showed he thought the same. "Your disassociations are shorter around her, as though she draws you out of them quicker than even we have managed to."

He snorted. "Well, since the way you 'draw me out' usually involves violence of some sort and then you're surprised I retaliate, I can't say I'm surprised," he pointed out. She nodded as if that were her due. "That boss of hers said something the other day and I looked it up. I think she's using psychological techniques on me. That should tick me off right and good 'cause I hate every shrink they've sent me to, but she makes it seem all natural, not like the bullshit Hydra used to pull."

"Plus, I doubt she has a mind wiping machine for when those techniques fail," Natalia offered glibly. She was the only one who joked about that, and even then it was in very limited circumstances. It always made Steve antsy though, probably because it was something he blamed himself for not stopping, not fixing sooner rather than later. Because, really, he should have suspected his best friend who had just fallen off a train going over a cliff had not only survived but had been experimented upon and become an automated killing machine.

He mentally shook his head. Even his own thoughts were beginning to become colored with Lewis' tone at this point. He couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing from an assimilation viewpoint, but it was definitely something to contemplate in the sanctity of his own rooms later, without distractions, no matter how well-meaning said distractions may wish to be. 

He had always adapted to the thinking patterns of his current handler, whichever agent that may be. He was simply trained and possibly programmed to do so. He needed to anticipate their calls, be ready to execute more than simple plans at a moment's notice. Think like them, plan like them, act like them but with the blood on his hands versus theirs. 

He really hoped it was not latent programming coming into play now, not after he had broken so much of it sad had worked so hard for so long to do so. He had seen Steve pick up some of Sam's habits though, and even Natalia emulated Clint at times though she would likely either deny it or insist it was for psychological attack purposes only, if she even deigned to discuss it at all. He had once asked when Steve had picked up a new and slightly annoying trait. Sam proudly declared it was from him and that friendship created such an amalgam of habits. Perhaps that was what was at play now, an honest blooming of friends and nothing as sinister as his mind would have him believe.

He thought about it again when he went for his run with Lewis later that week. As promised, it was outside, the cooling temperatures far more to her liking than the heat of summer. Also as promised, there was still her fancy ice cream available.

"Not even a bite?" she pouted. She held the spoon out to him, the confection already beginning to melt and threatening to drip on the pavement.

He shook his head. "I can smell the sugar from here, doll," he told her. It was true, after all. He could smell the sweetness of the cream and the bitterness of the roasted beans that went into the coffee flavoring, the richness of the chocolate swirled throughout. The less-than-truth of it was that he was damned tempted to try it anyway, just to see if the taste matched what he imagined. 

"Your loss," she said, apparently fine with the decision despite the contemplative look she gave him. She took a big bite and managed to drip what she couldn't fit into her mouth back into the cup and not onto her shirt through a near gymnastic gyration of her upper half.

For his part, he tried to concentrate on something else, to drown out the temptation with the world around him. He could smell fresh cut grass and the associated allergens, the damp musky smell of where the nearby drinking fountain steadily dripped into the surrounding dirt, the aftershave of the man walking too quickly down the path, and the waft of exhaust from the streets that surrounded the park. He could also smell his own beads of sweat at this point, decked out as he was in a jacket to hide his arm. The fingerless gloves left the silver tips of his fingers exposed, but most people didn't pay enough attention to that for it to matter. They hadn't been running particularly long or hard, but he would have much preferred the option of a short-sleeved shirt if it didn't come with the accompanying stares and questions.

Yes, he had survived far harsher conditions than being slightly warm from run through a breezy park. The thing of it was, he didn't have to anymore, not if he didn't want to. He had that choice, a choice he himself could make without others making the call, and he kind of really enjoyed it. Perhaps that was why instead of waiting for Darcy to finish her ice cream so that they could wrap up their run, he dished out his wallet and bought a cone for himself.

"Whoa, chocolate chip even instead of vanilla," she commented around a mouthful of fudge. "Go big or go home, my friend."

He waited until they had wandered a safe distance away from the vendor to level her a glare and threaten, "You know I could kill you with this spoon, right?"

She shrugged and proved once again that she had the survival instincts of a raccoon on a highway in a rainstorm - her words, not his - when she grinned, "You could do it with less than that, but you won't. Wanna know why?" She didn't even bother to wait for an answer, or permission when she used her spoon to steal a chunk of ice cream off his cone and continued, "Because chocolate chip is the bomb, my friend. It's one slippery, sugar coated slope to mocha java fudge and you already have your booted little foot on the hillside."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't contest her opinion. They walked side by side for a bit instead, each munching on their confections. He was about two thirds the way finished with his when his phone lit up. It was a call to assemble because of course it was. He judged they were at least two miles out from the tower, close enough for a run back so as not to embarrass anyone with one of Hawkeye's preferred methods of pickup involving a Quinjet and scaring the civilians.

He was about to ask if she'd be okay finishing up on her own while he ran on ahead when he paused, the need for a full threat assessment suddenly blaring loud and true amongst his senses. The man with the aftershave had stopped the equivalent of a block and a half away, talking into a phone that did not respond in any way he could discern. Equidistant in the other direction a work truck idled, though there were no visible workers or repairs needed on the street or immediately recognizable with the surrounding buildings. The man selling ballon animals lamented to the hotdog vendor that is was damn near dead today with a fraction of the customers as per normal. The man on the bench reread the same page of the paper yet again.

He rethought his initial plan and instead texted Steve a note that he would be there soon enough, estimated time of arrival based upon Lewis' running speed and not his own, and to just chuck his gear into the Quinjet and he would change along the way. He turned to her and opened his mouth to give warning, but instead she beat him to the punch, offering up a spoonful of her ice cream while she said, "Let me guess, you gotta run? I can totes finish that cone for you. Also, freaky pedophile guy over there either really likes the classifieds or is totally an agent sent to follow us, right?"

"He's not one of ours if he is, doll," he muttered around a mouthful of far too much sweetness. Part of his mind catalogued that the experience matched his expectations, another that it was perhaps something he would try again someday. The majority of his current existence was still focused on the potential threats that surrounded them. "Got that taser of yours?"

"Pretty sure it's illegal here and I have absolutely no pockets to hide it in anyway," she lamented and made a rough gesture to the leggings and tight shirt she wore. His old self would have attempted a leer, but it was neither the time nor place for such things. At the doubtful look he did manage to offer, she relented and admitted, "But Natasha gave me something she called 'a sting' and promised it could take even you out for at least a few minutes if you freak too badly." He suspected he knew precisely where she kept the small device and tried not to smirk at the knowledge. He also suspected he had absolutely no complaints about Natalia presenting such an item to her.

He shoved the last bite of his own much tamer treat into his mouth and offered out a hand. She didn't take it, but tossed her mostly empty cup into a nearby trash can and started to jog back towards safety. He led her on a slightly less direct path, one that involved sidewalks and walkways that would at least make it difficult for a vehicle to access if not impossible, places that would make actual confrontations more difficult for all involved but would provide both protection and escape routes if needed for Darcy while remaining clear enough for him to distract and engage. 

He was in no way surprised when they passed Sam a good two blocks away from the tower or found Steve waiting with a rather armed Natalia just inside the entrance to the parking garage.

"You clear?" Natalia asked even though he knew she was already confirming that fact for herself. She let Wilson slip back in and then locked the place down.

"Might have been back at the park," he admitted. He began to strip out of his jacket and the lighter gloves in preparation for the heavier gear that awaited him. A glance showed Darcy looked envious of his ability to do so, her own single layer of clothing offering no relief from clearly overheating from her exertions. She flapped the lower edge of her shirt instead in a vain effort to cool down but did not outwardly complain, even at his admission said exertion might not have been entirely necessary.

Natalia shrugged but it was Steve that said, "Better safe than sorry." He led the way towards the elevators and began the breakdown on the basics of mission at hand, a more detailed description to follow once a certain civilian was out of earshot. Infiltration with likelihood of confrontation. Four hour flight, which is why his slight delay didn't matter quite so much. That, and Barton always loved a reason to go just that little bit faster.

They packed Darcy away into one of the secure cars that led straight to the residential floors, Hill just happening to wait for her. They themselves climbed into one that would go a little faster and a little higher, Barton already having the jet prepped and ready and Stark loading both the suit and some extra gear they might need into the cargo hold. No one questioned his delay, or his active choice in said delay. He knew he could have left Darcy behind to finish up her run on her own, just as he knew he truly could not. She wasn't his responsibility, but she was quickly becoming something he might dare call a friend, and he had learned to keep those as close and as safe as possible.

He accepted his own gear and let the ramp close up for the flight, the jet already taking off because Clint did like to try to get a rise out of the others if given the chance. It didn't work, the adrenaline junkies that they all were, but he kept trying anyway. He was about to take his seat when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text from Darcy that promised both that she had made it in all safe and sound, and that she counted his single bite of her caffeinated ice cream as a victory for mankind. 

He huffed a smile and sat back for the ride.


	7. Chapter 7

Darcy didn't actually expect a text back from James, but she did grin at the speed that the little note that said it had been read appeared. She then tossed her phone onto the table and stood in front of a fan to cool down, finishing off the protein shake Maria had foisted on her in the elevator. It wasn't a James Special, but would have to do for now. Done and bottle tossed off to the side to deal with later, she headed for the shower and grimaced when she caught sight of herself in the mirror along the way.

Some of her hair had worked its way loose from her braid, hanging in frizzled clumps around her face. Her face itself was still blotchy red and pink from the run, and sweat dripped from her forehead down to her neck and further, joining the sopping mess that was her shirt. She had run harder and faster than she was used to, just at the hint of a threat, just because James had implied that they should get out of Dodge and the faster the better. Her left calf twinged and the balls of her feet felt like she had flattened any and all padding they once held. She knew she should probably stretch before everything locked up and made her miserable, but she also knew there was no one around to judge her if she didn't.

Her phone buzzed on the table and she silently cursed omniscient Super Soldiers and their sense of timing. She flipped the phone off with the proper salute, flipped the shower on with its awesome water pressure, and dug out some painkillers in a preemptive strike against muscle fatigue. She set the spray at nearly room temperature until she cooled down a little more, and then upped it to the max to both ease sore limbs and try to get the conditioner out of her hair. When she stepped back under the scalding spray, she asked herself just when her life had come to this, and why she had let it in the first place.

As the water pounded her aches away, her mind drifted to other things though, just like she knew it would. She always had her best, and arguably worst, thoughts in the shower. The world blocked out, distractions faded away, and her mind actually calmed enough for her to keep up with it for a change.

This time, her mind thought of the park. Of how James did a full on zone out that he would undoubtedly insist was an "assessment" just after he got his little call. Of how often he really did those. Of how he was completely unaware of damn near anything including the time when he hyper-focused on something, save for threats that he'd take out with extreme prejudice because his instincts on those were far too honed to ignore. Of how she could always tell what sense he had overused based on his reaction when she got him to come back to himself in the end - a snort of breath, the flick of his tongue across his teeth, the rapid blink or tilt of his head as he shook it as if to reset his vision or hearing, the way he'd wipe his hands on his clothing repeatedly for long after he was supposedly back.

It reminded her of someone and gave her an idea. Whether that idea was good or bad remained to be seen.

She dried off, dressed in clashing yet comfortable clothes, arranged her hair into something resembling anything other than a sopping mess, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She downed about half of that while she dug through her known files. She downed the other half while she dug through the electronic version of the same. Finally, she flopped back against the couch with a sigh. Either she had forgotten to bring the few she had on the subject she wanted, or someone had made sure they were forgotten. It was a toss up at this point, really.

Giving up, she grabbed her phone from the table. She promptly dismissed the message from James that she had already ignored, and dialed up a different number entirely. No one had told her that her room wasn't under surveillance, which meant it probably was. To request privacy or try to disable it now would raise as much suspicion as running off to a shop somewhere to make the call, especially after James had gotten all suspicious of life in general in New York such a short time prior. Plus, she kind of preferred the quiet background where she could at least pretend no one was listening in. Not to mention that it wasn't like she was doing anything untoward or illegal. They would have done a full background check on her ages ago and if this hadn't pinged on them then it wasn't likely to do so now.

The call rang through and a familiar voice answered the line. "The caller ID says it's my niece, but that can't be true because she hasn't remembered to call for at least three months. Who are you and how did you get her phone?" was what she was greeted with.

"Hiya Uncle Blair!" she returned, completely unperturbed by the toned down version of what she had been expecting. "I love you, I miss you, and I'm totally pestering you for info."

"Ah, it's these chats, really, that show me how much you care. I can feel the love through all these long miles." There was a pause, then, "It is still long miles, right? You're not suddenly on my doorstep or anything?"

"Other side of the country but not the globe this time," she promised.

"And what would my loving, caring, and totally self-serving niece need now?" he asked, and she could practically see his grin with the way his words lilted up at the end.

"A copy of your research on Sentinels," she replied.

There was a pause, just like she suspected. Through the line, she could hear the way his breath caught, the muffled snap of his fingers as he called someone over who had probably been listening in the whole time anyway but pretending not to for propriety's sake. He cleared his throat before he said, careful and gravely, "Now, Darcy, you know-"

"That you pretended it was all made up for an as of yet unpublished fictional novel that Granma happened across and jumped to the wrong conclusions about? How many years have you been selling that line?" she asked. She tried to keep it light, but there was an edge to her words, just like there always had been when the topic came up. She hated being lied to. The fact the lie protected others was the only saving grace nine times out of ten.

"Give me the phone," a new voice said. There was shuffling and muttered curses and something that sounded like the phone itself being dropped before that same voice came back, louder now, and demanded, "Are you truly Darcy Lewis?"

"Same as always, Uncle Jim," she swore. "And I know you can totes verify me based on like heart rate or respiration or the way my tongue hits my molars or whatever, but do you want to Skype this out instead? That way you can add visual stimuli as well as see there's no one holding a gun to my head on this."

Which is how she ended up switching the call to a larger screen, kicking her feet up on the small end table, and having a truly truncated discussion with two guys who had fooled her for maybe a week, and she blamed that on being young and being told to always trust your elders.

"You're in New York?" Jim asked in disbelief. He leaned far too close to the screen and the attached camera, his image distorted in a hilarious way that she'd never tell him about. Her own view of him was projected large and clear on the wall before her so she saw the way his eyes tracked everything in the room around her, waited for him to figure out the strange angle that sourced her own image.

"Yep, Manhattan central," she confirmed. She settled back against the truly comfy couch and took a draw from yet another bottle of water.

His face darkened, eyes narrowed as he accused, "There is no way a grad student could afford a place that nice."

She rolled her eyes and replied, "Got my Master's now and I know you know who I work for. Mom cc'd me when she emailed everyone that link to the CNN clip from London." The glare lessened, but not by much, so she clarified, "It's a long way from the old garage in New Mexico, but I still work for Janie who now works at this incredible lab. We have minions. It's awesome."

"That still doesn't explain how you can afford a place that nice," Jim pointed out. "Closets a fraction of that size go for more than my monthly pension around there."

"Very true," she agreed with a bob of her head. A strand of hair fell free and she paused to tuck it behind her ear. "But Boss Lady's Big Boss Man nearly had a conniption when he saw me pricing out places in Hell's Kitchen. The vein on his head was pretty. A few legal wranglings later, and what I think is one of the guest suites is mine for a small monthly tuppence." Like, mega small, but she didn't mention that. 

She also didn't mention that Stark had gotten his way less because of being the Big Boss Man and more of mentioning the word "liability" to his legal team. She was now publicly recognized as having been involved in a bunch of crap, and that bunch of crap could be tied back to Thor and, by extension, Stark Industries. Anything happened to her and there was a chance the stock would take a hit. She'd like to think she was more than just numbers on a tablet to him, but recognized the chance she was not. She held absolutely no illusion that any of his lawyers saw her as anything but data.

"The lab is owned by Stark Industries," Blair cut in, bringing them back around to what she knew would be a sticking point. He pushed Jim to the side while he leaned in, graying curls framing a rather peeved face. He had a tablet in hand, which showed where he was getting his intel. "I am not handing my research over to that-"

"I thought it was a manuscript, pure fiction," she cut him off with forced innocence. Now he glared, so she dropped the act. "'Kay, so here's the quick and dirty breakdown: one of the guys I work with is hella sensitive to pretty much everything. He hyper-focuses, zones out, the full nine yards. I've tried some of the techniques you taught me to use with Uncle Jim and they seem to work. Problem is, I don't remember them all and they don't always work even when I think I do."

She could see the glare turn to glee over the thousand-miles connection. "You think you found a Sentinel?"

She grimaced and admitted, "I don't know what I found, to be honest. He's not the 'jungles of Peru' type which, by the way, some of the agent-peeps are getting all hyper-whatever if you even mention certain places down South and I don't think it was just an earthquake like the news said since they're so up in arms, but whatever. Stay away for now, no visits to crazy shamans or such and no mention of being all special-like in relation to there until things calm down. There is weirdness. It's above my pay grade. Whatever."

"If he's not a Sentinel, what do you think he is?" Jim asked, shouldering Blair back enough to share the screen again. She had a feeling he wasn't dismissing her warning. She also had a feeling he was temped to drop a sat phone to his buddies to check up on them to spite her.

"A guy that got seriously screwed over in life."

Blair snorted. "Seems like a Sentinel to me," he muttered, and then dodged an elbow.

"More like a guy who got experimented on against his will and has PTSD like whoa," she corrected. "Don't know if it made him a Sentinel, if he was one to start with, or whatever. What I do know is that he's having issues acclimating and his hypersensitivity stands in the way of living a normal life, even by the loose definition of normal that runs free here."

"And you think my research...?" Blair prompted. She did love her uncle. He never questioned her conclusions, only ever asked for a second look at the data if it seemed off to him. Like now, she presented a generalized view of what she knew and he believed that she fully believed in her conclusions and that was enough for him until proved otherwise.

"Might at least give me a clue on some techniques for him to handle life, the universe, and all the crap that's been thrown at him," she replied.

Her uncle seemed thoughtful, but also seemed like there was no way he was making the decision on his own. A glance, a stare, the slightest of nods, and she knew she had won. 

"I walk you through it as needed," he hedged. "There is no way I'm sending anything electronic to that place. If I call it, I call it. Deal?"

"You, sir, have a deal," she agreed readily enough. Her choice was nothing or a chance of nothing, and she always did like to play with chance.

They chatted about normal things for a bit, or at least as normal as anything got between her family and her current life choices. They hung up after making her promise to call for more than just bleeding him for info, and she leaned back against the couch with a sigh.

Now she just had to figure out if Stark and the remnants of SHIELD had traced the entire call and would go after her family as enemies of the state or not. Awesome.

* * *

The team had come home after a week only to head right back out again a day later. James had stopped by with the traditional coffee delivery and to give her a heads up. He also told her he fully expected her to still make use of of her gym time and knew how to check up on her if need be. She had feigned heart eyes that he cared. His own eyes had simply rolled, but she found the address for a malt shop she hadn't tried yet taped to the treadmill, so she called it a draw.

She ran. She lifted. She totally skimped on like half the days and he would probably be able to tell the second he got back, but she felt she had earned a vacation of sorts by this point. She called her uncles every few days, even if it was to say PTSD Guy was out and about and she hadn't had any issues as of late because of that. They still discussed the incidents she herself had experienced with him, or at least the versions of events that would not make them freak out even more than they already were, and the college prof in her uncle pretty much graded her on her performance and gave her tips in case something similar happened again at a later date.

That later date, of course, happened far too soon.

It was a Saturday and Darcy had come down to the common kitchen area for lunch. She hadn't yet picked up her own groceries, but she knew the shared facilities were nearly always fully stocked. Ramen with ketchup hadn't sounded appealing, so figured she'd decide between actual real pasta and a sandwich based upon what was still available.

She walked in to find that, not only had the team come back, but James was in the middle of another zone out. He stood at the stove, watching the flames of the gas range and squeezing the heavy duty steel hard enough that she could see the dent from where she was. A large pot of water had been set to boil and the bubbling foam was slowly inching closer to the top, ready to spill over and wreak havoc. 

"Now's not a good time, Darce," Steve told her when she made to approach the scene. He stood protectively between her and what would soon be a fire hazard if they let everything continue, voice nearly a whisper in deference to his friend.

"How long?" she asked instead, not even pretending to play dumb. She kept her own voice low, but not nearly as quiet as his had been.

For his part, Steve didn't even look surprised. "Just over three minutes. He hasn't responded to any attempts to break him out of it yet. Clint's going to go get the tranqs to be on the safe side," he replied.

Darcy fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he was willing to tranq James again instead of just dealing with the issue outright. The drugs would cause increased sensitivities and likelihood of another event, or at least that's what her uncle had warned.

She took a hesitant step forward and was met with a wall of muscle. "No, Lewis," Steve said, tone brokering no argument. "He's not safe right now. The mission... is classified but I'll say that it might have stirred up some old memories and he might not fully be himself right now."

"You're afraid he might hurt me. I don't think-"

"That's right, you're not thinking right now, Darce," Steve cut her off. She wasn't sure if she liked his bluntness or not, but it did serve as a reminder that there were so many things she wasn't privy to and that she needed to come to terms with that. "You're smart enough and I'm sure you mean well, but you have to remember that Bucky is strong without that arm and there's no telling what's going on in that head of his right now."

She huffed and chomped down on the gum that was doing nothing to quell her appetite. Some things were more important than food though, and this was one of them. "Okay, fine, I get it. But can we try something my way before you drug the crap out of him again?" She swore she saw the slightest flinch of movement from the man at the stove, but it was too brief to be sure.

"You're not getting near him," Steve replied.

"That's fine!" she agreed. "But how about I talk you through something? It's a technique used on hypersensitive people with PTSD. If that doesn't fit the mark, I don't know what does." It wasn't a complete lie. Uncle Jim had PTSD like whoa, it just presented differently because no two cases were ever the same. 

Plus, he was totally lacking a metal arm.

Steve looked interested, or at least faked it well. He glanced at the screen of his phone on the counter, which she was pretty sure indicated Clint was somewhere out of sight but ready to go if needed. "No promises," he warned.

"None at all," she nodded. 

Which is how she walked him through Talking Down Your Sentinel 101. Steve approached James slowly and telegraphed every move. He repeated everything Darcy told him, word for word, sometimes adding his own version of cajoling that may or may not have been more common for people from an era she knew nothing about. James' shoulders eventually curled in on themselves slightly, the first real and verifiable movement since she had arrived, and she took it as a win. 

Steve must have as well as he let out a slow breath and asked, "You with me again, pal?" He got no answer, but rested a hand on one of those shoulders and reached to turn off the burner anyway.

That was, of course, when all hell broke loose.

James released his grip on the stove and whipped around, already mid-punch again by the time Steve got back into a defensive position. Steve rolled with it well, bringing his arms up to block the follow through but making no actual counterattack against him. Mainly because it wasn't needed.

James froze, arm still raised, and hesitantly asked, "Stevie?" From his new position, he could see past his friend to Darcy as well. "Lewis? Shit."

"That's about the half of it," she agreed. Even without Steve being all overprotective, she knew not to enter the current melee and stayed where she was just barely inside the doorway.

"You back with us?" Steve asked. He swiped a hand across his face and frowned when it came away with blood. His phone lit with another message, but he didn't bother to actually read it. "Because Barton would really like to shoot you right about now. It's been at least a couple of hours since he's gotten the chance to fire his new toy."

Darcy heard a snort of laughter from a corner of the common room that had only the slightest of pathways to the kitchen, but still couldn't find where the other man had hid.

James looked at the blood, and then at Darcy, and then at his own still raised hand. "Maybe he should," he offered as he slowly lowered his arm and slumped against the nearby counter. He wiped a hand over his own face, and she caught the way he glanced to make sure it away clean. At least on the palm side. His knuckles were spattered red, and there was no question that came from Steve. "I... I just... I really don't know what happened for a moment there. Other than that you were enough of a punk to actually try to touch me when I was like that."

"To be fair, I did not tell him to do that," Darcy piped in. It was followed by, "But I'm totally going to get him some ice for that because, ouch." She started to take a step forward but hesitated despite absolutely no sign of any wrongdoing. "Uh, permission to enter, sirs?"

Steve nodded and James sighed and she took that as enough of a yes to continue.

Confident there were safeguards in place now, and confident most weren't even needed, she wove around the current lack of melee and grabbed one of the many ice packs from the freezer to hold out to Steve. He took it, possibly because James glared at him until he did, but waved off her concern with, "It'll be gone by morning anyway."

She just raised her eyebrows, not sure if he was being serious or not. "Yeah, well, not all of us have your blood so you'll understand if I doubt that right about now? Come on, be a mensch and let me pretend I know what I'm doing..." she wheedled.

Steve dutifully held the pack to his cheek and she knew James caught the flinch as he did so just as much as she did. "Happy?" Steve asked around the cloth-wrapped plastic.

"Ecstatic," she replied with matching dryness. She peered at the pot and poked at the lump of soggy noodles sadly. "Hungry, actually. Do you think these suckers are salvageable? Like, toss some Cheez Whiz on them and they can't be worse than that time my roommate Gracie tried to cook, right?"

She reached for the pan, but was stopped by a metal arm that kept a good foot or so distance from actually touching her. "Darcy," James began, and she could hear the reproach in his tone. She just wondered if it was for her or for himself. Well, that and was happy he hadn't reverted to calling her by her last name again. It had taken weeks to break him of that particular habit. "You can't just pretend that none of this happened. I could have -"

She cut him off. "Not pretending, for real," she insisted. "You had a freak out and, well, it was freaky. We can either follow the process through of discussing what happened and what triggered it and all that right now, or we can wait until your mind is a bit more settled. But I really am starving and would like something somewhat edible sooner rather than later." Her stomach punctuated her remark with a particularly loud growl and she gestured to it as if she had made her point.

He nodded, but still looked unsure. Honestly, she didn't care if he discussed it with her or with Steve or Sam or someone with a far larger pay check than she would ever earn. The guy needed to talk though. To someone. She voted he choose the only person who really knew him that well, old times and new, and could apparently withstand a metal punch to the face.

Clint chose that moment to wander into the room from a completely different direction than the common room, likely just to mess with her. He didn't look to have a single weapon on him, but she wasn't fooled. He peered into the pot and shook his head. "Toast," was all he said.

"Come on, we live in a tower that houses literally everything you could ever need. I once didn't even have to go outside for like two weeks straight. It was awesome. We can totally have more than toast," Darcy protested.

Clint flicked her on the nose and she frowned. She also felt justified in doing so since the room's other occupants did so as well. "Pasta is toast," he clarified. "We can either wait for another pot to boil or order in from the cafeteria downstairs. Given that Lewis here wants to do unholy things with the rigatoni, I vote for hoagies."

"It's not unholy," she huffed. "You try being a broke college student making minimum wage three days before payday and tell me what you come up with."

He just looked at her unnervingly. "I can honestly say I've never had that experience," he said blandly. 

Both Steve and James nodded sympathetically behind him and she realized she was dealing with the completely wrong crowd. She swallowed and tried to find the words that wouldn't dig her in deeper, especially considering she was currently wearing a Culver hoodie and leggings striped with her school colors. She was saved by James when he cleared his throat and offered, "A pastrami would do good right about now."

Clint placed the order and James insisted on cleaning up the mess he had made, very pointedly telling Steve to sit down and keep the damn ice pack on. Relegated to stool warming duty, she kicked her feet and tried to find something to entertain herself for the few long minutes before the sandwiches arrived. Steve beat her to it though, when he asked, "What's whizzed cheese?"

"Do not answer that, he is still unsullied," Clint said as he poked at the dent in the stove.

Darcy simply smiled that much brighter.


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky sighed as he looked in the mirror. He seemed to be doing a lot of that these days. The sighing, not the vanity part. Though, when he took a closer look, maybe he should do that more often as well.

His hair was unkempt again, with long strands that preferred to hang in his face versus stay back in any semblance of order. His face itself only had anything resembling a normal pallor because of his exposure to the elements on their recent mission. The deep shadows under his eyes and the rough stubble on his chin spoke of the true him underneath that particular facade. 

He thought back to that mission. It wasn't particularly arduous, but there were enough details to trigger more than a single memory. His memories rarely came without a price anymore, so he took it as his due that flashbacks were to follow. The getting lost in himself for long moments at a time could end any time now though. Thankfully, they only seemed to occur during non-vital experiences and had yet to play any role in his effectiveness during a mission. It was almost as though his body concluded that he was safe, or at least safer, and that it was appropriate to deal with the underlying issues with limited repercussions.

Of course "safe" to him apparently involved abandoned and unknown hallways and his few attempts at creating anything edible. The smoothie he could choke down. Somehow he doubted setting fire to the kitchen would be quite that easy.

It was the flame that set him off this time, and he knew it. 

Towards the end of the mission, there had been a factory - supposedly abandoned save for the fact Hydra had chosen it to house its less than willing operatives, also known as hostages. The team had gotten what they thought was everyone to safety before the place blew, but he swore he had seen a face through the flames, pressed up against an unbreakable window and screaming for help. He didn't know if they were Hydra or hostage or even real as no one else seemed to notice. He did know that, on the ride back home, he remembered a far different factory and how he had ensured that every escape route was blocked before he set it aflame himself.

The people inside had not been operatives.

The memory and the recent experience both rolled around his empty skull throughout the return and the debrief and everything else. Why he chose to make something that involved the gas range, he had no idea. He did know the flames flickered just right, just in time to the images still floating around in his head, and he got lost for a moment, maybe more.

He'd like to say that Steve helped him snap out of it, but there was more to it than that. The way he came back to reality was a little fuzzy, just like the flashback itself would be with enough time, but he remembered more than just his best friend's voice. Steve had just been an echo of another. That other had been as familiar as the sickly sweet scent of cinnamon, a smell he had never experienced until fairly recently. The incongruity of that made him doubt the voice was just repeating trigger phrases to activate his programming, and made him actually start to pay attention to his surroundings again.

Of course Steve had to go and touch him while he was still half out of it and trying to do a self-assessment - the punk always did like to jump the gun.

The scent of cinnamon, the duality of voices that rung familiar and unthreatening, and the sudden absence of flames brought him crashing back fully to reality. It took him all of about a second to realize what he had done. It took him all of about one more to be thankful it was Steve and not anyone else that had taken the brunt of it. Not that he wanted to hurt his friend, even despite his vast amounts of stupidity at times, but more that it was someone who wouldn't break, scar, or worse before he got control of himself again.

He splashed some water on his face and washed the taste or pastrami from his mouth. He'd clean up more later. For now, he was going to lock down his room and try his damnedest to get some rest.

He gave himself two hours before he resorted to the pills one of the shrinks had prescribed.

* * *

When he awoke more hours later than he had hoped, he found Natalia at his bedside again. He didn't even bother to ask how she got past his lockdown.

"I need to be watched now?" he guessed, voice rougher than he had intended.

She put down the book she had been pretending to read and asked, "I don't know, do you?"

He groaned and resisted the urge to roll over and bury his head under the pillow. She'd just take it away from him anyway. "Can we not play this game right now?" he asked instead.

She eyed him critically, but nodded. "Fine," she relented. "We can talk about how you look like shit instead," she offered.

"I slept," he protested, perhaps a little bit petulantly.

"With or without pharmaceutical intervention?" 

He sighed. Again. It really was becoming a habit. He pushed himself slightly upright so that he could look at her properly, the headboard supporting at least his head. "Does it matter?" he finally asked.

"It does," she told him honestly.

"So what do I do?" he asked, knowing she already had her answer about the pills.

She leaned back in her chair, feigned a relaxed posture. Her feet were on the floor though, shoulder width apart, flatly planted. She was ready to move, and quickly, if needed. Her words though, were blunt and plain and hid nothing the way the her body did. "Talk to someone, pretend it helps. Eventually, you convince yourself it did and you move on. The next time it happens, you do the same. Over and over and over again until some part of your mind believes it, or at least trusts the familiarity of the pattern."

"Speaking from experience, Natalia?" he guessed.

She shrugged, languid, but her feet shifted slightly, tension lessened just a little. "You could say that," she agreed. "The thing about us spies, we're really good at listening. Might even know how to use some of the intel in a way to further the mission."

The offer was on the table, but still he hesitated. "And what is the mission this time?"

"Keeping you alive, and functioning," she replied. Her lips curved into the slightest of smiles and she added, "Oddly, you've grown important to others. It's for the good of the team, and perhaps beyond the team, to not have to fish you out of a white padded room. Or the Hudson."

He took her words at face value, and maybe a little deeper. At the very least, there were others willing to put the time and effort into him, at least for now. In return, he knew he really should be willing to do the same.

And so he told her.

Not about every flashback or every trigger. Not about every nightmare that kept him up at night or the memories that he couldn't always discern from reality. He told her about the current situation only, about the mission and the single memory and the fire and the flames. She didn't press, didn't demand more, only listened and contemplated and let him have his say.

"You're not that man anymore, James," she said when he finally paused enough for her to do so. "I know you're still finding yourself, but that man, that asset, is not you and never really was. It was a construct. A tool. If you blame yourself for every death at its hands, then I have to blame myself for everything I did under the control of the Red Room."

He huffed a breath. "You do, Natalia."

She pursed her lips as though trying to find the right words, enough of a rarity with her that he knew to give her time. "I try to make amends for what I did in the past, I won't deny that. But I try not to dwell on each and every thing I did. It'd be... Instead, I think of those events as a single great wrong, a heavy weight to be balanced out by as many little rights as I can manage before my time is up in this world. It might not work, and it might not even be realistic, but it's what I need to do to survive, to exist enough to not simply give up, because if I do that they win. Those rights give me a purpose, a new mission if you will, and I must try my best to fulfill it." She paused and looked at him, really looked at him and met his gaze. "It's who we are, James. It might be who they made us, but it's a part of us all the same. We will complete any mission set before us. The only difference is that, this time, we create the parameters instead of just fulfill them."

He thought about her words, long after she left and long after he re-secured the perimeter of his rooms. He tried to think back to who he was, who he wanted to be before his life went to hell. He hadn't been a good man, despite Steve's insistence otherwise, but he had been a decent one. He had known right from wrong and made his choices then, for better or worse, just as he was learning to do again now. Only now, every choice, every thought, was tainted with who they had made him be. He questioned what was him, what was the asset, and what was him trying to fight the asset. He needed to work past that, needed a goal. Needed a mission.

He spent the majority of the rest of the night drawing up a battle plan.

The next morning, he prepared to implement the first phase of said plan. Sadly, it was pretty damn close to what he had been doing already: continue to train Darcy Lewis and offer training to others should they so desire and should they be willing to work with him. Not in weapons, but in defense and evasion tactics, in overall preparedness. He would teach them to survive, balance the scales with lives saved versus lives taken. He knew those scales would never fully be balanced, not from this alone. But he also knew it was at least a beginning. Hopefully, when mixed with the missions he now went on with Steve and the team, he could muddy the waters into a shade of gray instead of the pitch blackness of before.

Of course, he hadn't actually discussed any of this with Lewis. Also, of course, she seemed determined to make him question the whole damned thing all over again.

She cancelled her training session with him. She claimed it was just for the day and that it was due to Doctor Foster having a breakthrough, or at least what she perceived to be a breakthrough, in the middle of the night that had lasted through the morning when she got there and well into the afternoon. She claimed there was no way she was capable of even finding a treadmill in the state she was in, let alone running on one. She claimed she would make it up to him later.

He questioned the timing of the cancelation given recent events.

Not that he blamed her. Though he would have thought Natalia and her regiment would simply appear in the gym for the session as they had the time before, not that session itself would be moot.

Perhaps he had scared her off after all. It was about time she got with the program and finally gained some survival instincts.

He told himself he was exaggerating the situation, making it more than it was. When they had began their sessions, she had warned it was entirely possible such things would happen. It was difficult to ascertain the true mindset of someone over text, the little smiley faces varying between sarcasm and sincerity on a regular basis, so he thought it best to discuss it face to face.

He paused several paces outside the door to the lab, hand prepared to raise to knock despite the high-tech alternative system of announcement most chose to ignore. This area of the building was not fully soundproofed, at least not to his enhanced senses and the scientists' inability to remember to close the doors, so he could just make out that she was talking to someone from within. The voice was unfamiliar, and he would be lying if he said he did not actively attempt to eavesdrop to sate his curiosity. 

"Nope, total zone out and he came out swinging. That totally wasn't my fault though," she insisted to whoever she was speaking to. He now felt more justified in listening, if only a little. "I said no touchy, buddy boy had to touchy. The technique as a whole seemed to work though."

The voice that responded was more muffled and echoed strangely, which led him to believe it may have been a call of sorts and not a live conversation in person. A covert glance showed her with cell phone in hand, hair and clothing disheveled and remarkably similar to what she had been wearing the day before. Instead of concentrating on what the voice said, he concentrated on calming his heart rate and utter sense of betrayal. 

Darcy Lewis knowingly and willingly used "techniques" on him. 

She did not fit any model of spy or double agent he had come across yet, but clearly there was something more beneath the surface. Perhaps Hydra had changed their MO, or were trying something new specifically because he knew the ins and outs of the organization so well. Perhaps she was more highly trained than he originally anticipated. Perhaps he had simply been duped, which, well, was quite the accomplishment and he'd have to give her that.

She was speaking again, but the words made no sense. Not unusual in his experiences with her, but they did not appear to fit his new hypothesis either.

"No, seriously, I'm fine Uncle Jim! Didn't lay a hand on me and was terrified he might have. Think back to when you came back from Chopec or whatever, it totally triggered more flashbacks and hyper-awareness and shit." There was a pause, then, "Yeah, swear jar, whatever. Anyway, Uncle Blair and mom wouldn't let me near you for like a week, which really sucked because I was only there for Spring Break anyway. You knew you wouldn't hurt me, I knew you wouldn't hurt me, but no one wanted to take that chance, right? You never have and you never will."

The next words were said by her contact, but still didn't make that much sense. Something about a "spear incident" and the repercussions thereof.

"I was like ten! Maybe eleven!" Lewis protested. "It was cool and pretty and did I mention cool? How would I know it happened to look just like something used to attack you like a day before? Besides, I got like a single bruise from that and, really, the screaming fit from literally everyone hurt far more than that thing ever did."

She was pacing now, occasionally getting closer to the door and occasionally drifting further away. She hadn't seen him yet, but that was at least partially due to her attempting to pick something that may have been glue out of her hair. 

He knew he would need a damned good explanation as to why he was there and that his emotions where still too raw to effectively hide, at least from her as she truly had a knack of guessing far too close to the truth. There were too many variables at play for now though, too many unknowns. He did not run away, but he did bid a strategic retreat until such time further intel was available to either confirm or disprove her allegiances.

Six hours later had granted him access to some very interesting files from a police department in a town called Cascade.


	9. Chapter 9

Darcy was pissed. Or at least she would be if she had the energy to spare. Jane on a bender meant she herself was on a bender for longer, the need to feed and care for her distracted friend-slash-employer followed up with the need to discern just what the hell happened and complete at least a rough version of paperwork for it - enough to hold off the hordes until the real data was available if nothing else. That meant that she was dead on her feet by the time she reached her rooms and saw the alert up on her open screen there.

"Fuck," she swore. She debated the need for actual food versus the need to get horizontal and settled for one of the pre-made protein shakes Maria had given her before. Not the tastiest of things, but they served a purpose so she stocked up on a couple of packs for the times when James Specials were severely lacking.

She downed it quickly to avoid actually tasting it, and then pulled up a Skype window to her uncles. No response, but it was like midnight there so that wasn't a huge surprise. Instead, she set it up to open a window and alert her as soon as they made the attempt and then sent a quick message of, "Someone knows. I'll let you know when I do. Stay safe."

She hit send and turned around to try to find her way to her bedroom despite how welcoming the couch looked. In doing so, she damn near ran smack into a wall of muscle that she was quickly becoming well acquainted with. "Seriously?" she complained. She rubbed her nose despite not actually having hit it. "The super advanced system warns me you hacked into my personal files, but not that you are here in my apartment? For real?"

"You're not Hydra," is what James greeted her with.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock," she retorted. "What, were SHIELD and Stark's quadruple-checks not good enough for you and, after months of letting me get close enough to off you, you now decide to check for yourself?" She thought about her words, and how she could have better phrased them to not piss off the killer assassin who had snuck into her damn near pitch black room, and backtracked slightly. "Not that I'd off you, even if I could because you'd stop me before I ever had the chance but, really, this little stunt is uncool enough to make me want to at least throw a punch if I knew how."

Okay, so that might not have been much better.

"You have been using psychological techniques on me without my consent," he accused. He also didn't move. It was like dealing with a literal wall and not just a figurative one.

"You've been having flashbacks and freak outs and other 'incidents' that could comfortably be called dissociative events. Hell yeah, I tried anything I could think of to help," she countered. She crossed her arms in front of her and prepared to wait this one out. She really hoped it wasn't too long of a wait though because she really was well and truly exhausted and didn't know how much longer she could stand let alone standoff.

He finally moved. The slightest shifting of his feet, probably into a sturdier stance or something, but it totally counted. "Why?" he asked.

She tugged at her hair, then regretted it when it made the headache she had been fighting for the past three hours spike. "Because I care!" She gave up trying to control her movements and gestured wildly, both to physically grab the words that didn't want to show up when she needed them and to avoid scalping herself. "You're a guy who was trying to do good that got screwed over in life and has to deal with a lot of shit. If I can help make it easier in any way, teach coping methods or buy you a whiskey, I'm going to. It's part of being a decent human being, or at least should be."

"Did you learn that from your uncle?" There was the slightest sneer at the end, as though he doubted the monicker. To be fair, the Lewis family tree had far too many branches and very few of them actually had the name Lewis on them. Mix that with pseudo-relatives that earned titles of Auntie or Uncle, and it got complicated. At last check, she had like six grandfathers, but only one Granma because no one could ever top Naomi.

"Yes," she spat back. "He met a guy and tried to help him, tried to treat him like a human fucking being so he could survive in society. It worked, so he drilled into us kids to at least try to do the same should we ever find ourselves in a similar situation. Or did you mean Uncle Jim? Because he's just as much a part of my family as Blair at this point, and I would damn near give my life to protect him, even if it means being stupid enough to go up against you."

She was tense and tired and kind of wanted to take a swing and kind of wanted to take a drink, but completely and totally deflated instead when she saw James' shoulders slouch forward and heard him whisper, "I'm not a Sentinel, or whatever you want to call it."

"No, you're not," she agreed. "But you're the closest thing I've got to one so I thought I'd give it a try. 

"To prove your uncle's thesis and get him credit after all these years?" he guessed.

She shook her head. "To help you deal with your hypersensitivities and everything else in a way that maybe you won't implode or explode or just take yourself out along with everyone around you in the aftermath," she insisted.

He looked at her doubtingly, and she couldn't exactly blame him. The boy had trust issues written all over him. "You think you can succeed where everyone else has failed?"

She huffed a breath. "Given that Soldier Boy's method is drugging the shit out of you and then being surprised when it makes you flashback to when you had the shit drugged out of you? Maybe?" she admitted. She swiped and hand over her face, not worried about smearing makeup because she had lost that battle hours ago. Also, her glasses. Those were last seen somewhere around a Snickers bar and Jane's laptop. "I honestly don't think this is a pass or fail thing here, James. I think it's a searching out and finding methods to help you cope, at least most of the time. Some days they might work, some days they might not. Sometimes it might even be the same day. But something has to give, and I really do think you're at the point where you'd really like it to happen." 

He stayed there, perfectly still and unmoving versus the way she swore the room as a whole was swaying because even she couldn't wobble that much just standing on two feet. Then, finally, he looked back up at her, the million mile stare gone and replaced with what she decided to call determination. "How do we start?" he asked.

"We don't," she replied, and watched as his face crumpled before it started to harden again. Style and grace had left with her makeup, so she held up a hand to get his attention and corrected, "Not tonight. This morning. Whenever the hell it is right now. I've been up for damn near thirty-six hours and cannot function."

His posture straightened again, and she had the feeling she was being fully scrutinized and found severely lacking. "Then what do you propose?"

"I propose that I hit the sack and, when my brain is ready to come back online again, the two of us sit down and work out a game plan. Together. Said game plan will involve Captain Protective and anyone else you want or need, but it will also involve a lack of spying and hacking and all that jazz, got it? We're upfront about this, or there is no this at all. Deal?" She offered out her hand, not sure what he'd do with it, but needing some sort of formality else things be left hanging for an indeterminate time while she drooled into her pillow.

He took it and shook it carefully. He lowered his arm to rest at his side and then the scrutiny was back again. "Thirty-six?" he questioned.

She shrugged and finally let loose the yawn she had been holding back. "I think I dozed for an hour, tops, if you add the time I stared into space and questioned where my life took a wrong turn." She cracked her neck and continued, "One of the House Lackeys, Jessica? Maybe? Anyway, she had been there and then she had been gone and then she bitched us out about the validity of sleep-deprived findings - she never would have survived New Mexico. Around that time she cut off the coffee and I was able to call Thor in to carry Janie home since she had damn near dropped at her desk. Another hour of cleanup and chasing the lackeys away from the computers so I could lock them down, and here I am."

She smiled as brightly as she could manage. It wasn't that bright.

"Go get some sleep, Lewis," he told her. It sounded like an order, but softer, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. At least the underlying thread of anger was gone even if he had reverted to calling her by her last name.

"Yeah, I was trying to, but someone broke in and had to have an existential crisis of betrayal," she shot back. She felt her attitude was severely weakened by the addition of another yawn. Just like she had feared, she had let one loose and it had started an avalanche.

He at least looked guilty at that, or at least she was going to pretend he did. He stepped aside to allow her passage to her bedroom, but she had the distinct feeling he followed her shuffling footsteps there. 

She didn't care, not really. She faceplanted into the first soft surface she found that was semi-horizontal. There was a huff, possibly of amusement she wasn't sure, then the bite of the tablet against the side of her face disappeared as it was pulled free from where she had left it on her pillow that morning. Her toes felt cold for all of about a second when her shoes disappeared, and then she was nice and toasty warm when her comforter was tucked around her. She knew she should probably protest the angsty assassin putting her to bed like the mother hen he and his buddy always pretended to mock, but that would take energy and she really didn't have any to spare.

She just hoped she didn't drool too much until he left.

* * *

She woke up to the smell of breakfast. There was banging and clattering coming from her kitchen, so there was a chance it had even been made there. Or was in the process of being made. Whatever. She had slept, but clearly not enough as her brain had not yet fully rebooted.

She swung her feet over the side of her bed to find her slippers neatly lined up next to her shoes. Given that she had last left them somewhere in the vicinity of the closet, she was a little suspicious. Given that her glasses had been placed next to her alarm clock - which declared it only seven hours after she had faceplanted - and she knew those hadn't even been in her apartment, she was really damn suspicious.

She stuffed her feet into her slippers and her glasses onto her face and stumbled towards the noise and smells. "So you broke into my room twice?" she asked as she plopped down at the table. Clearly food was forthcoming and she saw no need to work towards it.

"More than that," James responded with absolutely no shame. He was in clean clothes with non-greasy hair and was pretty much the polar opposite of her at that point. He turned around from his station at the stove and offered her a less than impressed expression. "You do realize that you need more than protein shakes and ramen to live on, right?"

She folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on top of them. "Are we back to the scurvy thing? Because I thought we had worked past that."

The look intensified.

She waved a hand to encompass the cupboards and dishes and the actually really appealing smells coming from the kitchenette. "Why do you think I eat with you guys so often? It's not because I like to hang with super heroes and their baggage. Well, not completely. Y'all have some awesome stories and those aren't even the classified ones. Anyway, the main kitchen has food twenty-four hours a day, most of it already made and ready to go. I buy a few things to add to the pot to try to even it out, but I doubt anyone cares."

"Ramen, Darcy. You had ramen, protein shakes, and something I couldn't identify that I'm pretty sure was not naturally that color in the entirety of your pantry," he replied.

She didn't tease him about calling it a pantry, even though it was really just a few cupboards, a fridge, and a freezer. The room put the "ette" in kitchenette, but she had seen places with smaller amenities going for over four times as much per month, so she wasn't about to complain. Well, complain about that, because she opened her mouth, certain she was going to say something witty and sly and instead came up with, "Oh, hey, I bet that was the pie from last week. I'm sure it was totally still good. And I really can cook, I just see no reason to have to most of the time."

He turned back to whatever was in the skillet and gave it a stir, clearly intent on ignoring her antics. "If you're getting most of your nutrition from the shared kitchen, we need to have a conversation about just what nutrition is. Takeout is not a food group," he chided.

She blinked. "What? Are we back to trainer and trainee? Are we going to pretend you didn't try to intimidate the shit out of me last night?"

The stirring paused and the skillet was set off to the side. James turned back around, but she couldn't quite get a read on what was going on inside his head based upon his expression, or lack thereof. "No pretending," he said, and it sounded like a promise. "I just..." A breath, as though he was readying himself for battle. Given the history of Lewis confrontations, it might be for the best. "I hoped we could, not start over again, but move on. Maybe change the titles from trainer and trainee, intimidator and intern, to friends? I've heard those are useful things to have, especially for someone having 'PTSD freak outs' as you so kindly put it."

He looked so sincere and so serious and she, of course, said the first thing that came to her head. "We are friends, doofus. Not like besties or anything, but I'd say we're beyond acquaintances at this point. We're just friends that need to work on boundaries. Like not breaking into rooms or files or headspaces. Stuff like that."

"I thought all those techniques of yours were all about getting into my headspace," he countered, but didn't seem upset, just curious. He leaned against the counter now, all fake relaxed and slumped but she knew he was primed and ready to take whatever it was she had to throw at him. Possibly literally.

She shook her head, chin digging into the back of her hands with the action. "Nah, it's about getting you to be able to deal with yours," she told him.

He paused, for long enough that she wondered if she'd need to intervene, but eventually said, "I'm sorry about last night. Trust... Trust doesn't come easy and I jumped to conclusions." He managed to look her in the eye, even held it for a ten-count before he looked away almost sheepishly.

"Hey, if apologies come with in-house breakfasts, I'm all for them," she chirped. Then, to make sure he knew what she meant, she said, "I accept your apology and offer one of my own. For, you know, that whole boundaries thing."

He turned back to the stove and started dishing out his creation, which appeared to be scrambled eggs with actual veggies in them as well as sausage and what looked to be a hash of some sort. "Yeah, don't accept it yet, Lewis. Your uncles called using that Skype thing and I answered. Nice guys, really. A little surprised to find me and not you, but overall they seemed like decent, upstanding men."

"What?!?" she screeched. She pushed herself up and away from the table to pace, pointedly ignoring the way he visibly flinched, either from the action or the sound of her hysteria. "Oh, this is so not of the good... Uncle Jim had probably already commandeered a small plane and Uncle Blair has probably done nothing to take him down and he'll violate Stark airspace if not international and the tower will go into lockdown and..."

There were hands on her shoulders, steadying and warm. Well, one was warm and one was that odd sort of room temperature that felt cold in comparison. "Breathe, Lewis," James instructed, and she tried really hard to comply.

"He was a Ranger," she babbled. "He probably has at least a fifth of the weapons on him that you hide on you on a regular basis. He favors his right side a little because of an incident that involved a construction zone and Blair being banned from driving for like three months but you've got to promise not hurt him, okay? He means well, but is hella protective and..."

"Darcy!" James shouted, and gave her a little shake to bring her back to the present. The ass even had the audacity to look amused. She stopped talking for a moment though, mainly to catch her breath, and she even looked in his direction now, so he undoubtedly counted it as a win. "Darcy, they are not coming. We talked. A little, but enough to convince them I wasn't there to kill you in your sleep. They are calling back in roughly two hours from now, enough time for you to eat and wash up and get your head on straight."

"And you don't think he won't call from a plane?" she asked doubtingly. James had never dealt with Uncle Jim intent on a mission before. 

The assassin in question shook his head. "Two hours and I was to wake you if you weren't already up. They even made me bring the little tablet thing into your room for proof you were only sleeping and that I hadn't killed you," he swore. "They were going to call Doc Foster to confirm, but I advised them they would have to get through Thor first."

She took this to mean Blair called anyway and got up close and personal with the God of Thunder in the wee hours of the morning. He had met him once in passing during a Skype session from London, had mocked him thoroughly, and then fanboyed him when Thor called Mjolnir to him just for show.

"We need a plan of attack," she told him, and meant it. He still gripped her shoulders, so she held onto his elbows, both out of gravitas and to steady herself.

He relaxed under her hold, for real this time, which only made her more suspicious. "The only attack plans made on empty stomachs are desperate ones," he said, and shifted out of her reach. "Eat, and we'll talk."

She stood there for a moment, arms askew. "You are not taking this nearly seriously enough," she accused.

He just looked at her with one eyebrow raised, and she was reminded about the life he had lived, both before and after the war. Captured, experimented on, brainwashed, fought free of his controllers - in the grand scheme of things maybe coping with someone's overprotective relatives was nothing. At least for him. She was going to get reamed out for days.

So she sat and she ate and she resisted adding hot sauce to the eggs since he had worked so hard on them, even if they were a little bland. Every time she would open her mouth for a reason other than shoveling food into it, he would shake his head in her direction. If that didn't work and she actually tried to take a breath to go into another freak out of the tirade variety, he would shake a metal finger at her and she would sullenly return to her actually quite decent breakfast.

She finally finished and sat back with her arms crossed in front of her and her lower lip stuck out resolutely into a pout. "Now do I get to talk?" 

"Now you get to go wash up," he corrected. He started to gather the dishes and other accoutrements and head for the sink. "I'll take care of these while you take care of yourself," he told her. He sounded overwhelmingly like a school teacher and she resisted the urge to act out based on instinct alone. "It won't be that bad, I promise."

It was that bad.

She showered and changed and brushed her teeth and the whole nine yards. She was even ready a whole fifteen minutes before the appointed time, which was a good thing since of course they tried to call ten minutes early. She gave them points for holding out that long.

She did the whole call and response thing that had been ingrained into her since she was little to hint at bad guys doing bad things in bad ways. James seemed to know what was going on, but also seemed strangely calm about the process. She then learned it wasn't a plane, as she had suspected, but a chopper and that they could be in the air in minutes though it would take a few hours to get to her.

She talked them down from that, but just barely. She also talked them down from calling the cops, explaining how they'd never get past Stark Security and the Avengers anyway and it would only cause bad publicity. She might have thrown in a snide comment about her uncles already having enough of that in their lives.

James sat at her side throughout it all, as still and impassive as she was mobile and passionate.

It was Blair that snapped first. "When you said you were trying to help a hypersensitive person with PTSD, you kind of forgot to mention this person was the one-armed menace once seen on international television trying to execute Captain America!"

It was the first time James flinched throughout the exchange.

"Really, Blair? Really?" she sighed and resisted the urge to bang her head on the table. "He's right fucking here. Way to potentially trigger him. Glad to see those lessons you taught me meant me and not you, as in the whole 'do as I say and not as I do' crap."

That, of course, led into a tirade about security precautions and how she shouldn't be left alone with him and some other stuff that she tuned out when she focused on James and the way he didn't protest any of it. He didn't have the ninety mile stare yet, but it was reaching about forty-five, so she held up a hand in the direction of the screen and asked, "You okay there, Barnes?"

He blinked back to full reality and offered a shrug that wasn't really a shrug. "It's true," was all he offered, and she was tempted to shut the feed and warn Stark of incoming hostiles right then and there.

"It's not," she protested, and felt three identical looks of disbelief aimed in her direction. "Okay, so it kinda is," she relented. "But you are doing much better and all I have to do is bitch once and Captain Protective will be notified and come rushing in and we both know it. You lock down when you zone out, not lash out, which means that as long as no one is stupid enough to approach, no one gets hurt. This includes me and this includes you and you know it." It also included Steve, but he was the one dumb enough to try stuff, so she thought it best not to mention that at this point.

"Tell me about the zone outs," Jim asked via the feed.

Darcy looked to James for permission, but he simply smirked without humor and said, "Go for it, doll. Won't be the first time a report's given on me and won't be the last."

She felt something squeeze roughly in the vicinity of her heart at that, but was determined to actually force some productivity out of the call, so she opened her mouth to dutifully give what she saw as her findings.

Only she was cut off by Jim.

"Not what she sees," he corrected. "What do you see? What do you feel? Not the specific flashbacks, but any sensations leading up to and away from the event."

James actually thought about that for a moment, as in his entire posture changed as he actively contemplated it. When he spoke, his entire being had changed, accent and all. Gone was the quiet snark or the static seriousness he got when things were going pear-shaped. Instead, there was a drawl colored with the sounds of old-time Brooklyn and what she suspected was him, the real him underneath it all, when he said, "It's like the whole world goes quiet. Lights, textures, sounds - everything gets turned down 'cept one or two things. They're so stark, so out of place, that I look for a reason..."

"And you keep looking and keep looking and that's the hyper-focus everyone else sees," Jim guessed. He leaned back against whatever chair he had commandeered because it sure as hell wasn't at their usual place and added, "It's the looking that causes the flashback. You start comparing that one 'thing' to anything you can until it eventually makes a connection with something you might have completely forgotten up to that point."

"Hey, you really have been listening all these years," Blair quipped, and earned an elbow to the ribs for his efforts. He rubbed the area, either mockingly or because Jim was a good shot, but looked back to the camera to ask, "And when you come back out of it?"

James offered his half-shrug again. "Everything's back," he said simply. He paused, then amended that to, "Everything's back to the way it should be, but it seems more intense because it was gone for so long, you know?"

Blair seemed contemplative, but it was Jim who nodded and agreed, "Believe me, I know."

Things grew silent for a moment, which Darcy took both as a sign that the menfolk were not going to elaborate and as a sign for her to intervene so that they did. "So what do you do when that happens?" she prompted.

Jim smiled, just the slightest twist of his lips but it was the most positive emotion she had seen from him since the whole conversation had begun. "I let your uncle talk me through it." 

The call actually turned productive from there. Blair explained some of basics of what he did and Jim explained whether he thought any of them worked or not. Some of it was a retelling of things she already knew and had tried in the past, and some of it seemed brand spanking new as an added detail or three told a much larger picture now that she knew to look for it. She scribbled notes and added a word here or there, but mostly just listened. She was actually quite good at that even though most people doubted it. You work for a babbling scientist for long enough and you learn that damn near anything could be important and worth later review.

Eventually, things drew to a close when she couldn't stop yawning. Seven hours was not enough to make up for thirty-six, especially when James had only allowed her one cup of coffee and somehow hid the rest of her stash away to parts unknown. She had done her time as a teaching assistant as well as a lab assistant back in college, so lesson plans danced in her brain long after goodbyes were said and the screen went dark. 

James damn near physically carried her to her room and took all notebooks and tablets away from her when he tucked her back into bed. He promised to come back in a few hours with what he called "real food" when he flipped off the light. She wanted to ask what Stevie-boy's preferred learning methods were, but found the darkness was really quite inviting after all and managed what even she had to admit was an incoherent slur before she gave in to the pull of the pillow and blankets.


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky headed straight for the gym. He had a lot of emotions circling around him and, quite frankly, wasn't sure what to do with them. Darcy had, in essence, betrayed his trust but had only done so in her attempt to try to help him. Finding out about her uncles, Ellison in particular, made her actions make a whole lot more sense. Finding out she did this all for what was practically a stranger, even if their relationship had grown since they first met, did not.

Meeting Sandburg, he could definitely see the familial connection. They both had some innate want to help others. That want was colored with their own curiosity as well, but the helping took precedence. They both cared. Possibly too much. No, definitely too much given what he knew about Lewis and what he had read about Sandburg. They put themselves at risk, their goal of knowledge and assistance far outweighing pesky things like self-awareness and common sense. They'd even sacrifice the quest for knowledge if it meant the safety of someone they cared for, and he wasn't sure how he felt about them abandoning a mission so freely, even if there was a chance he would benefit from it himself.

He planned on destroying a few punching bags in the way Steve was now infamous for, so he yanked a fresh roll of tape off the peg on the wall as he entered. He stopped only a few paces past the doorway though, the overwhelming feeling of wrongness invading his senses.

He had been in the gym at all hours of all days depending on moods and schedules. He had a fairly good feel for who used this one in particular and who avoided it like the plague. This was the basic setup and open to all, the far more intricate and elaborate version of what was more of a training room was on a separate floor and locked to the team only. He had used this one first because it was nearly always empty, and later because Lewis favored it. The team had occasionally drifted down out of safety concerns for his would-be student, but very few others ever showed up.

There was a woman in the far corner, headphones on and tablet out. She had short-cropped blonde hair that barely moved despite the pace she was setting on the elliptical machine, and she had clearly not yet re-racked the weights she had been using previously. The body type matched that of one of what Darcy called "the lackeys" that occasionally helped out in the labs. Lindsey. Vorgensen. She had a dislike of fancy caffeinated beverages and the vast majority of the music Foster preferred. To be fair, so did Lewis, but she tolerated it based upon a trade off system he had yet to fully discern.

The woman had not yet noticed him, the angle of the machine and the doorway working in his favor. That, and she had not yet looked up from her tablet on the built-in stand. 

He decided that he had frightened enough interns in the last twenty-four hours and did not need to risk continuing the trend by decimating equipment while potentially blocking her primary means of escape. Reluctantly, he set the tape back down and left her to her workout.

Steve was not available for a run, but Sam was. Wilson set strange restrictions on the pace and number of laps, but it did make it possible to carry on a conversation should he so choose. He was also an excellent listener when he wanted to be.

"Wait, you broke into her place but also made her breakfast?" Sam asked as they rounded a corner. "The stalker-meter is high on that one, bud." 

He was slightly breathless, so Bucky shortened his stride. "She broke into my privacy so I broke into hers," he clarified. "What I thought was a threat assessment was actually quite enlightening. These techniques of hers, they actually have a sound foundation."

"And you're not going to tell me said foundation because you suddenly have a newfound respect for her privacy?" Sam guessed.

"She wants to train Steve on them, teach them to someone who can withstand me if I snap. I can ask her if she's okay with you being in the loop. You don't have the serum, but you have Barton and the icers. Try one and use the other if it fails," he shrugged.

Sam stopped at that. Hands on his hips and ragged breath returning to standard. "You are pretty damn chill about people shooting you," he pointed out.

Bucky smirked, but there was no humor to it. "Tranqing me is the least of what's been done to me."

"Still don't make it right, man," he said with what might have been sympathy. He clapped him on his shoulder and then took off again, the first time he had been in the lead for this particular excursion. Given the look of utter glee as he passed, it had been no accident.

Bucky gave him a ten count to appreciate his victory before he overtook him again.

* * *

"And you believe her?" Steve verified. He held the bag while Bucky threw the punches, though they had already traded off twice. The gym was now thankfully free of interns, allowing for freedom of both conversation and aggression. He had intended on returning to Lewis sooner, but decided she should get the rest while she could. Plus, he had verified Thor was keeping Foster away from the lab.

He jabbed with his left and felt the bag give way a little more than before, despite the support. He had a feeling they would be replacing this one with one of the many others that lined the back wall soon. "I do know how to study a target," he reminded him. He offered another hit, this time with his right, before he added, "The data matches. Who she says she is, who her locked files say she is, how she knows what she knows. It all matches. And you can't blame a gal for trying to keep her family safe, not after what happened with everything else."

Steve tapped the bag to indicate he'd like his turn, likely because he too felt the fancy fabric giving way and always enjoyed the pleasure of them falling apart under his hands. To spite him, Bucky offered one last punch, with his left hand of course, and smiled when the sand began to trickle to the floor. The added bonus was when the bag itself bounced off of Rogers' forearms because he had actually lessened his stance thinking Bucky was going to give in.

Steve rolled his eyes, which just made him grin wider, but dutifully took down the now broken piece of equipment to move on to the next. "I'm not letting a civilian next to you when you get like that, not if I can help it," he warned.

Bucky took a swish of water and swallowed, but held the hook in place when directed so that they could line up another bag. "Not even what she's asking. She wants to talk you through it, thinks you'd be the only one both tough enough and stupid enough to try. We were thinking either Barton or Wilson as a backup since they're good shots and could probably tranq me if it didn't work."

"Plus, Clint really likes to shoot you," Steve agreed readily enough. He checked the hold and then checked to make sure Bucky was in position before he threw his first volley. "What makes you so willing to try? Figured you'd be pissed she poked at you without your permission."

That was true enough, so he admitted it. He then also admitted, "But I talked with her uncle, the one with the senses, without either her or her other uncle around. He said he was just as wary of the 'bullshit mumble-jumble' as I was, right up until it worked. Said the big deal with him was the first time he was able to actually sleep through the night without something like the sheets setting him off." He shifted his grip as a cover for his shrug. "I don't know, just something about the way he talked about things. If it was able to help him, it's gotta be worth a shot, right?"

Steve, of course, saw right through him and his lack of surety. He paused and offered him both a look and a promise of, "Most anything is, Buck, if you want it enough."

Which is how they ended up sitting around his admittedly bare apartment having lessons on taking down your deranged hypersensitive sniper. No one was willing to trigger an event specifically, so they talked in generalities and each of them offered up what they thought of as possibilities and results. Darcy explained the basics and he explained what he saw as potential flaws given the mental programming he had been subjected to. The hope was to reach a common ground and build from that.

"What works for one person might not work for another," she warned. She had her feet propped up on the small end table Natalia had brought over some time back. Come to think of it, pretty much anything beyond a bed and a couch had been drop offs from her, usually with a casual note for him to trust the item in question would come in handy sooner or later.

"So what worked for Jim might not work for Buck?" Steve guessed. It was clear he was asking why they should even try if that was a known going in.

She scrunched up her face and shook her head. "Yes and no," she corrected. "The techniques themselves are there. Like, Uncle Blair used the same tricks on Jim as he did on Evil Bitch Whose Name is Forbidden to be Spoken, and they both responded, just to different levels. That said, one time Jim was in this full zone out and I walked up to him. I must have been like ten, maybe. I made my voice all zen-like like Blair does and put my hand on his shoulder 'cause that usually brings him back, at least when Blair does it. Bam! He spins around like he was punched and I ducked and covered. I got so much ice cream that night, let me tell you."

Steve was asking what worked for her to bring him back then, but Bucky was focused on the violent reaction. A ten year old girl versus a trained Ranger - he could have snapped her neck without a second thought. He felt his grip tighten on the arms of his chair, but surprisingly did not flashback to the times he had done something similar, vertebra crushing beneath his grasp. Instead, a young and rosy face with wide eyes and dark hair played a role front and center, the look of horror and fear that colored it chilling him to his core. It wasn't until he heard fabric tearing and a definitely feminine voice ask, "Yo, Jimmy-boy, wanna rejoin the rest of the class?" that he realized he had slipped away.

"Flashback?" Steve guessed.

It would have been easy enough to write it off as such, but he had promised to be as honest an open as he could in this whole thing so he admitted, "Nah, actually was contemplating reaching through a screen and beating a man like he did a kid."

Steve paused, but nodded, and Bucky was fairly certain the other man wouldn't have stopped him - not right away - if the technology had been in place. Neither liked a bully, and a grown man going after a kid was an extreme version of such. It was Darcy though, who held a hand and said, "Whoa there! He never laid a hand on me. I ducked, I covered, he saw a scared kid and came crashing back to Cascade with a wallet destined to be emptied at the nearest malt shop."

He calmed, slightly, and actively worked at regaining a steady breath. She acted like she didn't notice the rage, at least not anymore, and commented, "It's actually another way you two are alike: you both think the worst. Of yourselves. Of others. Your gut instinct is that someone somewhere is trying to hurt another someone, and that it's your duty to stop it. Fairly certain that was never part of your programming, but just a part of you yourself at like a core level."

He doubted that but, to be fair, he had very few memories of his life before becoming Hydra's most valuable asset. Steve told him tales of course, mostly of saving Steve's own sorry behind when he'd get himself into fights with those bigger and not better, and those felt right, but it was hard to tell if that was because it was the truth or he wanted it to be. Rogers looked ready to jump in with another back alley story of triumph that he wasn't really up to dealing with, so he kept his mouth shut for now.

They talked some more, and Darcy made Steve parrot back certain phrasings with certain tones. It was hard for his friend to keep the tiny hint of exasperation out of the way he repeated things, but he at least tried. It felt a lot like a handler learning his lines though, which he guessed it technically was. That made him more uneasy than he was strictly willing to admit, like he traded one form of lack of control for another.

It was Darcy though, who surprised them both and left no doubt to her frustration with the situation. He had to admit that he had been less than cooperative, but found that her ire was actually not directed at him, but at Steve for a change. 

"He's not a dog!" she snapped.

Steve looked at her like she was the dense one. "No, he's a person," he agreed slowly. When her glare didn't recede, he added, "Hey, I'm just following your lead and saying what you say at this point. In the field that might change, but for now we're still getting the basics down."

"You're ordering him," she huffed. She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned at the curls as though they were the offensive ones. "Look, I get that you're all commander or captain or whatever out there and I get that that's totally a part of you. You give orders and expect people to comply. This whole schpeel is about getting James to comply, but not really. We're not Hydra here. We're not going for the brainwashed minion. We're going for the 'hey, buddy, wanna come back to reality on a way that doesn't kill us all? 'Cause that'd be awesome.'"

Bucky snorted without meaning to. It was an honest reaction and the look on Steve's face made it that much better. He let those two bicker while he tried to sort out what made Darcy's words work for Darcy, but just seem off for Steve. What it came down to, or at least what he thought it came down to, was that she really did say it differently. Steve varied between the commanding tone and the almost whine he used to get when things didn't go his way. The fact he remembered that tone enough to recognize it was something to contemplate later in a way that hopefully didn't trigger any flashbacks or nightmares. Darcy herself said the words in an almost cajoling manner. Not belittling, not fed up, not an order. More like a suggestion. His mind actively fought being told what to do as much as it craved it. Being given an option though? That was still new enough to catch his attention.

He'd talk that part through with Steve later. For now, he wondered how pissed they'd both be if he sat back with a beer to watch the fireworks that was their personalities competing for dominance.

He settled for catching a certain set of eyes and mouthing the word "arf" instead.


	11. Chapter 11

Jane was on another bender. Two in less than three weeks might have been a record. Alternatively, it might have been a sign of a real breakthrough, as in the kind she got so rarely and then won awards for when it redefined the world of physics. It was a toss up and could go either way, really. The way she was going off had Darcy mentally picking out dresses for her next big presentation - dresses for Jane, not her, as the sweet, tiny thing with absolutely no sense of fashion would wear plaid and hiking boots to Oslo if given the chance.

For now though, Darcy had to try to wrangle Jane back into sanity and try to talk at least two of the lackeys out of offing her in her sleep. She started with what she knew best, figuring Stark employees had both seen worse in their time and probably had some clause in their contracts to prevent the liability of murder.

"I'm putting my foot down and saying no," she said, stomping said foot for emphasis. "You are not flying to Australia to personally see to the set up of the equipment on less than three hours of sleep in the past twenty-four, I don't care how fast Stark jets can fly and I have already made Big and Blond promise not to take you without Pepper's explicit permission."

"But..." Jane protested.

"No, you won't sleep on the plane, I know you," Darcy cut her off before she could really get started. "You have three weeks before this cosmic event might even start. You can send the prelim stuff to them today, actually sleep, and then we can talk about booking a flight with all the amenities closer to the go date for you to finalize the prep. You'd just be setting and resetting the gear at this point anyway. Do I need to remind you of the Great Duct Tape Adventure of 2014? Where you almost missed getting anything useful whatsoever because you fiddled with your fancy machine and we had to tape it back together with literal minutes to spare?"

Jane pouted. Darcy tried not to find it cute because that's how they got in trouble that time in Vienna. "My calculations could be off," she wheedled. "What if we miss the whole thing entirely because I'm not there to catch the formation?" 

This time Darcy didn't even try not to roll her eyes. "You're a genius. Your math is like never wrong. Two super computers, actual Tony Stark, and Thor himself verified we have time. No."

Jane really didn't get the chance to protest much more because of a knock on the door. Well, she would have, but she wasn't actually raised by apes and had some manners, so she refrained even if it looked like she was still itching to go. Sam poked his head in and looked back and forth between the two women. "Is this a bad time?"

"Crap!" Darcy exclaimed and smacked her own forehead as her schedule pre-breakthrough flashed through her brain. "Yeah, okay, bad time. Totally going to have to reschedule the whole training thing, both kinds really. Jane's having a sleep deprived epiphany and we're all being dragged along for the ride."

She ignored her friend's squawk of indignation to listen to Sam promise, "Not a problem at all. I'll let the others know and maybe have someone send up a latte or five?"

"I could ban coffee from the lab if you don't let me go!" Jane tried. She looked triumphant for all of about a ten count before she came to the realization of, "Wait, that means I couldn't have any either. Scratch that and bring me a pot, please?"

Wilson just laughed and said, "I'll see what I can do. It might come with an actual meal though, or a demi-God from outer space to enforce nap time."

Darcy kissed him on the cheek, leaving a reddish print behind from the last of her lipstick. "You are awesome," she told him, debating a hug since she had already crossed a line anyway. "From the bottom of my, and all the other lab monkeys hearts, I say thank you."

He just chuckled again and left to see what he could manage. The hour was not yet unholy, but Darcy knew it would be before she saw anything outside of the same four walls. Sam was totally a wonderful human being for thinking of both stopping by and providing actual foodage, even if she felt horrible for forgetting to send a heads up to Steve and James that they would need to postpone their weekly sit downs. Honestly, even sweating in the gym would be more welcome than trying to talk down the glares coming from the exhausted interns huddled at the far side of the room.

"Food is incoming and I will personally buy the first round at Patsy's once we break free," she promised. 

Lindsey's glare lessened slightly and Jessica huffed but reluctantly smiled. It was Carrie, who had been co-opted from Savanti's lab when she made the mistake of asking if anyone needed anything that asked, "What about Shashi? What are you giving him for stealing me from his tender yet absentminded ways?"

"I won't superglue his glasses to his table the next time he blows up his lab and puts us all in lockdown?" Darcy offered. 

It earned a snort, which she counted as a win long before Carrie offered her hand to shake with a definitive, "Deal."

Six hours later had Darcy finally shutting down the lab. Jane had sullenly wandered off to bed, Carrie and Jessica had run as soon as humanly able, but Lindsey lingered long enough to help clean up the wrappers and cups and everything else that lay about.

"Need help locking those down?" she asked around a yawn and with a rough gesture towards the bank of computers.

Darcy yawned right back, but shook her head. "Bio-encrypted," she reminded her. "That's why y'all had to work on your tablets and I have the glory of uploading this crap. It won't take long though, I swear. You might want to run while you can, in case Janie wanders back with a new and fantastic idea that needs review right at whatever horrible hour this is."

Lindsey humphed in when Darcy was taking to be a joking way. "There's tasers and tranqs, I've seen them. This building is loaded with them. We could just knock her out, drag her to bed, and tell her it was all just a dream?"

"Good luck getting that past Thor - he's got like this sixth sense about anything happening to her," Darcy warned, even though she knew it was all in fun. "Jeannette once threatened to drug her coffee and he insisted on taking the first sip for weeks."

Lindsey made a face. "Who's Jeannette?"

"A very kind girl reassigned to a very dark mail room," Darcy replied. She scanned her thumb on the final computer and started the shut down process. "There. We're free. Officially and for really and all that. Get some sleep and we'll hit Patsy's tomorrow, er, tonight, at seven."

Lindsey leaned up against the wall in the hallway and waited for her to lock the lab itself before she said, "You really buying first round?"

Darcy nodded. "Really and truly, so make it worthwhile." She had checked her account last week and, wow, Stark paid more than she thought. Either that, or she was getting bonuses for late nights or something. It was awesome. She never really had spending money of her own before, either going without or living paycheck to paycheck. She assumed the lackeys had all come from similar backgrounds and so it was with pride she would spend money on booze for them just like Jane had done for her all those years ago. Bonus points if it stopped them from killing her or her boss out of gratitude and/or hangovers.

She finally made it up to her rooms and found a note taped to the door right at eye level. She took it as a subtle reminder to make sure she had her glasses with her and had not locked them in the lab or lost them in transit before she read what amounted to heating instructions for some unknown item of the possibly edible type. A glance at her fridge when she got in showed all but one protein shake had gone AWOL and the otherwise empty shelf contained a foil covered dish with the same instructions scrawled across the top.

She drank the shake and set the timer on her coffee pot for the decent hour of noon. There was no one around to do it for her this time, so she tucked her own glasses next to her alarm clock, verified the damn thing was off, and crashed into the softness of her too many pillows and super comfy blanket.

The buzz of her phone woke her up just before the coffee was to start and that was just cruel. It was from James, reminding her not to sleep the day away and checking to see if she wanted to reschedule training for the next day. She typed a response and hoped autocorrect didn't do her wrong as she said yes to the mental and no to the physical, citing her promise to the lackeys and herself from the night before. She didn't plan on drinking enough to be fully hungover, but had learned over the past few months that starting a workout while already dehydrated was just plain dumb.

She tossed what turned out to be some sort of weird egg casserole into the oven per the instructions and went to wash up while it cooked. Bathed, hair partially brushed, and coffee in hand, she dug into the thing and made a mental note to thank Sam as she was currently experiencing more flavors than James might be aware existed in the world. Even if it was his writing, it was clear he had help this time around, and she was not about to complain.

She finished getting dressed, sent a halfhearted check-in email to her uncles, and went to check on the lab. She still had about an hour's worth of data to input, maybe more, and wanted to make sure Jane had not hot-wired a Quinjet to get her way. It took her three tries to get in because apparently she didn't just shut it but put it in lockdown the night before, and was grateful it was only three because four involved trying to convince Stark Security that she really did work there.

She got a report that there were two other attempts using different passcodes a good three hours before, and reassessed just how determined Jane might have been. She decided it was a good thing she went overboard with the lockdown, otherwise there was a good chance she would have to renege on her promise of booze and possibly payout bail money for an intern or three.

An hour and a half later had her reverifying a number that looked odd and probably meant Jane was right with her current hypothesis. A knock on the door signaled the appearance of Jessica and Lindsey and a reverification of a different sort.

"Nope, coast is clear," she promised. "As long as Savanti doesn't hold Carrie hostage in revenge for yesterday, we should be good to go.

Lindsey laughed, but it was Jessica who asked, "How do you do it? The whole random hours and not losing your temper thing." She leaned against the desk and, even though her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, twirled a long strand around her finger again and again.

Darcy sat back in her chair and resisted the urge to spin it. They were treating her like she was an actual adult so she should probably act like one. "I've gotten used to it," she shrugged. "You hang with someone for long enough and you know how to read them. Like, last night? Total annoyance at the pigheadedness, but I knew the data was there and so I coped. Looking at these numbers again this morning? She's totally on track to something. That makes it worthwhile I guess."

Jessica made a face, which Lindsey copied. "How do you know the data is there? Not that I'm complaining because I'd much rather have missed out on sleep for an actual breakthrough than a goose chase, but how can you be certain?"

"See the part about hanging with someone long enough," she smiled. "You pick things up. Some makes sense, some doesn't, but you totally learn." 

"And that's what makes it worthwhile? The learning so you can use it for your own work later on?" she guessed.

Darcy shook her head, paused, then shrugged again. "I guess so, maybe," she relented. "I don't care about any research of my own because I'm not a science person - well, not a science person like you guys are. I care about Janie getting what she needs to do all the cool things she does. This is life changing stuff here. If I can help even a little? Totally worth it."

"Don't you have any ambitions of your own?" Lindsey asked. Her voice was that carefully modulated tone that meant she was totally judging but trying to seem like she wasn't.

"Oh, I totally do," Darcy rushed to correct her. "But my boss is mega smart and has been to actual alien planets, well, one for sure anyway, and how cool is that? We can't all be the Tony Starks of the world, but maybe being the delivery goon that gets the part to him in time to save the world is good enough?" 

"Aw, you'll always be more than a delivery goon in my heart, Lewis," a voice sounded from the door. It was the man in question himself. She had only actually met him face to face a handful of times, usually to chase him away from Jane and her lab. In the process, she had quickly discovered he appreciated attitude and snark more than prim and proper behavior, especially if there was actual data to back it up. This is why she continued to lounge in her chair while Jessica and Lindsey damn near jumped to attention.

"Hey, Boss Man, what's hangin'?" she greeted him.

"A bit of a security issue, actually," he said as he walked in. He eyed the other interns and visibly brushed them off as inconsequential. "Is there a reason the place was set into lockdown last night?"

She waved goodbye to the others, who rather reluctantly left. Jessica, specifically, looked disappointed to not be near Stark's greatness. She let the door slide shut behind them, curious as to why it did when they always left it open save for maybe it having to do with the presence of a certain genius and his love of proprietary privacy before she answered, "Instinct?"

He folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow. "Expand?" he prompted.

So she did. "Janie's on to something, possibly something big. Don't let her book any flights for at least a week, but I think she's got an actual breakthrough."

"And so you decided standard security measures in the most secure building in the world wasn't enough?" He made a face to let her know what he thought of that. There were raised eyebrows and everything.

"Honestly, I'm not sure why I did that - see the part about instinct," she admitted. "Last time we figured something out, space elves attacked. Before that, shady government agencies. Maybe I just wanted to make sure her data was safe, for really. Maybe I was just going on too many hours of lack of sleep."

That, he smiled at. "Surprisingly okay with you locking the place down. Most of the other groups do it to some level, but no one really triggers the extra bells and whistles. Also, kudos on the lack of freak out. I've had people literally piss their pants when I've pulled this before."

"Gross," she said and made a face. She didn't know what people found intimidating about Tony Stark, but she figured most people hadn't seen Thor carry him over his shoulder and ground him to a couch before. "So this was a hoax, no real freak out?"

"Eh, not really," he admitted. He jerked a thumb back at the door and admitted, "Actually wanted them out because I have a reputation of not paying attention to maintain."

"A reputation that's totally founded if you talk to pretty much anyone who's ever met you," she agreed. She really was still too tired to deal with anything of the emergency level, but wasn't sure how she felt about him faking one just to jerk her around.

"Nameless faces, really. Who can believe a thing they said?" he grinned. He probably sensed that he was losing her, or at least making her lose her temper, so he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and thrust it in her direction. "You've been putting in extra hours on top of wrangling a one-armed assassin, as in enough to rival me if the log from last night has anything to say about it. Word on the street, or at least the hallways, is that you are taking the interns that helped you out tonight - which is totally endearing them to you so expect far more volunteers next time - and I figured you were dumb enough to do it on your own dime." He paused and pretended to ponder that for a moment. "Do they still make dimes? Or are they just in museums at this point? Anyway, Starks take care of their own."

She accepted the envelope warily, and opened it to find a credit card with her name on it. "I can't tell if you are bribing me or paying me off?" She spun the card in her hand, the thin plastic sharp against her fingers.

"There's a limit on it, but it's decently high and probably more than you'll need for the night. Let's be real, it's probably more than you'll need for a month of entertaining up to my standards. Anyway, it's yours and tied to an expense account and yadda," he explained with a wave of his hand.

She knew her eyebrows were doing new and interesting things, but didn't have the wherewithal to stop them. When she found the words, which she was frankly surprised he gave her the time to do so, she said, "Not that I'm not grateful, because I totally am, but can I ask why with the generosity?"

He looked at her, as in really looked at her. It was a side of Tony Stark very few got to see, and she knew it. He was brash, he was loud, but he also really was a giving guy beneath it all. "Because you thought of it," he said. "You saw people go above and beyond and thought to reward them. We pay well, but they're still only interns. A lot of places, a lot of people, wouldn't have thought twice about making them work extra hours without so much as a thank you. You did."

She held the card up and resolutely did not think about how much a month's worth of Tony Stark parties would cost. "Thank you," she said, and meant it. "You don't have to though, I was going to pay for them myself. I, like, get a paycheck and everything now."

He backed out of the room with an amused glint in his eye, but all he said was, "I know."


	12. Chapter 12

"So, how much coffee is going to be needed after an Interns' Night Out?" Sam mused. Dinner had been completed and all that remained was to clean up the mess they had left behind.

Bucky shrugged, but felt his lips quirk into a smile. "I don't know, but I'm guessing a lot. If Tequila Tuesdays warrant a double shot, I'm guessing what she started calling a 'Thirsty Thursday' might need more."

Sam chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "Oh, to be young enough to have that sort of tolerance again..."

"I'll warn the baristas in the morning," Steve said in agreement with Bucky's assessment. He stood and started to gather up the plates, a pointed look offered towards the glasses and utensils. Bucky dutifully grabbed those and Sam reluctantly wet a rag to wipe down the table.

"You know, I have people to do that," Stark said as he stepped into the common kitchen area. "People who aren't you." 

He looked harried, worried even, and that put Bucky on alert. Steve hadn't turned around yet from where he was loading the dishwasher and commented, "Remember that talk about personal responsibilities? And how having them-"

"Yeah, sure, fine, whatever," Stark cut him off. Given that he knew how much that irked Rogers and did it with absolutely no welcoming audience or comic relief in sight just raised Bucky's hackles even more.

Preferring to cut to the chase sooner rather than later, Bucky asked, "What's wrong?"

Stark flipped the tablet he was carrying around, not quite keeping still enough for a clear read on it though. The glimpse Bucky saw showed a map, but he couldn't ascertain just what it was a map of. "Three panic buttons just went off. Considering we know four employees to be out and about together, I'm a little concerned. Anyone want to supersede security and handle this one ourselves?"

"Lewis," Wilson guessed, rag already discarded. 

Bucky followed suit and chucked the silverware into the sink. He was ready to move out, knew he was probably armed enough already, but that Stark would have gear ready next to whatever transport he had chosen.

"Is she?" Steve prompted, and Bucky stayed focused enough on the moment to get an answer.

"She's one of the alerts, as is Nichols and Reynolds. Vorgensen is the only one who didn't hit hers, and that could be because the others already did it or she's incapacitated," Tony reported. He flipped the tablet again, this time holding it far more steady to reveal an outlined map of the city, three bright red dots pretty much right on top of each other. "GPS puts them at a place called-"

"Patsy's," Sam finished for him. "That's where they were headed and that's the address. At least they stayed relatively close."

The four of them moved towards the elevator and Tony zoomed in to confirm. "At the very least, that's both where the buttons were pushed and where the current signal is coming from. Hit about three minutes before I grabbed you. Barton and Romanov are on assignment, Thor's keeping Foster safe. I figure three ex-military and a guy in a snazzy suit should be able to handle rescuing a handful of interns that just happen to work for one of the top research projects in the world getting freaked out."

Bucky's phone chose that moment to ring. Given that it went off with a cheesy pop song half in Russian and half in English, he knew who it was before before he even pressed the button to answer. "Where are you?" he asked. If it was Darcy, she'd tell him. If it was whoever it was that was stupid enough to grab her, Stark would have a trace started already.

"Thank fuck," he heard a familiar voice across the line. It was whispered and hushed and annoyed all at once. He was ashamed to admit a small bit of tension bled from him at her words. "Patsy's. Kinda. Locked office in a row of 'em above the place. Possibly not for long because that banging in the background is someone trying to find us and I have no idea how strong these doors are."

"Get out only if you know it's safe," he told her. There was a sound, sharp, harsh. He'd place it as a .22 gauge. "Lewis?"

"That's the key they're using. It's kinda overkill, especially when it takes them a couple of shots per door," Darcy said. She was trying for blasé, but he could hear the slight almost hiccup to her words.

"Give us ten to get to you," Steve said, loud enough to carry through the receiver. There was no way he hadn't heard the shot with his enhanced hearing.

"They're Hydra," was all she said in response.

He swore, dark and low and echoed by his friend. "Make that five."

Five minutes was, of course, a ridiculous amount of time as the bar was at least twenty minutes away on a good day and they were not even to the lobby yet, but they made do. It was late enough for traffic to be lighter, but not by much. Stark had his fancy suit and could get there first, but that didn't stop Bucky or Steve from weaving in and out of the lines of unmoving cars on the souped up motorcycles Stark kept stored for them in one of his multiple garages. Sam followed on one of his own, of course, a litany of curses coming through the coms at every turn.

Eleven minutes later, and the bar was in sight. The Iron Man suit hovered above it, but had made no attempt to enter. Stark gave the play by play as his sensors saw it, which was that the bar seemed to be carrying on as usual, the warm body count typical for a late Thursday night and no one making a mad race for the door. There were several unmarked SUVs idling in nearby alleys, giving off enough signals to indicate they were not just looking for a parking space. 

The bar itself was on the first floor of an old building that had been repurposed many times throughout the years. Currently the floors above it held offices, but Bucky could almost remember a time in which they were apartments, the scent of fresh bread wafting up from the bakery below. Stark reported three active life signs on the second floor, huddled together in a single unit. Outside were two that were no longer moving and seven that clearly were. The seven were entering each unit one by one, and were only two units away from the one that most likely held the interns.

Stark took out the waiting vehicles while Steve and Sam wound their way through the crowds of the establishment towards the back stairs. Bucky decided to cut to the chase and climbed the fire escape, taking a moment to tap the earpiece Stark had given him to ask, "You still there, doll?"

"Well, we would have run if we could but we're surrounded by tentacle goons and this building apparently doesn't believe in things like fire codes," she huffed. "The window is literally painted shut. So many violations. For real. I'd try to break it but I think I'd make enough noise for them to find us behind door number two, you know?" There was a pause and he could hear her reassure someone in the background. When she returned, she asked, "So where the hell are you anyway?"

He swung from the escape to the facade, the brickwork making handy grips to finish closing the distance. "Right behind you, darlin'," he replied. His metal hand pried the window free with no problem, decades of paint and possibly some wood crumbling easily - and thankfully silently - enough. 

He slid through and assessed the situation, ignoring Lewis' jibe of, "Jerk," and her swat to his arm because he could hear her breathing finally returning to a shade of normal even if her heart rate was still elevated.

The room was still secure, lights off and a heavy metal desk pushed up against the door, parallel scrapes in the old wooden floor indicating how it got there. Reynolds was in a side room and appeared unconscious, head pillowed in Nichols' lap. Respiration was slow and steady and her eyelids flickered but did not fully open - drugged, but not fatally so. Nichols was damn near hyperventilating even as she stroked her fingers through Reynolds' long hair and muttered what she must have thought of as reassurances. They smelled of liquor, and the side of Nichols' blouse was drenched with both that and sweat.

He turned his attention to Lewis, and tried to keep his anger in check. Her bottom lip was swollen as though punched and, though it was hard to tell with the low lights, she looked to be sporting the beginnings of a black eye. When she dumped her phone into the bag slung at her side, he saw that her knuckles were scraped and bruised as well. It was the scent that drew his attention though, above the sweat and the booze and the slight tang of blood, was the sharp sweetness of fake cinnamon. Her locket hung open, preferred gum nowhere in sight, and he saw precisely where her own panic button had been hidden.

"Best to put it with something you wear everyday," she shrugged, knowing precisely where he stared. "Harder to find, blends in, yadda. Jess's was on her barrette and Carrie's was on her watch."

"Good choice," he agreed seeing the soundness of the decisions. He would still recommend backups, alternatives to occasionally purposefully switch to as the obvious tended to draw the eye. Then, with a nod towards the door, he ordered, "Get down."

The footsteps in the hallway had slowed. Confident. Sloppy. 

They thought they were against a handful of interns only. 

They were about to be surprised.

The door handle jiggled, and then snapped as it was shot off from the outside. A kick provided no more than an inch's worth of opening due to the desk. Combined with the silhouettes through the opaque glass, it was more than enough.

His gun had been in hand since before he had even noticed the locket, so it was easy work to pick off the first two men. The third was large enough and dumb enough to kick the door the rest of the way open, the desk skidding across the floor and falling to its side. Two more shots and two more dead, which left three.

He checked the hallway to find one had run back down towards the main stairwell, straight into Steve. Rogers tossed him to Sam to deal with, the goon already half-dazed from a single punch, and took off down the thin floral carpet to take care of the final two. Bucky took the opportunity to check on the remaining two life signs and found a woman half inside an office and dressed more for work than a night out or a night of abduction. The missing intern was unconscious beside her.

He started to lean down to check on Vorgensen, but stopped at the distinctive smell that overwhelmed the dust and hints of mold and tang of blood. He found a tiny little rectangle of overly sugared cinnamon to the left of the intern's booted feet, right next to a familiar small metal disk covered in scorch marks.

"She's one of them," Darcy announced from the shelter of what remained of the doorway. Lit by the fluorescent bulbs of the hallway, he saw that his early assessment was correct. Her lip was threatening to split and her eye would naturally rival the paint she wore there by morning if not iced. Shadow. They called it shadow now. Served the same purpose, but he knew names were important enough to be corrected.

"You sure?" Sam asked, but it was clear he was ready to take her at her word. 

"She told them where we took off to, reported in all official-like, and I'm pretty sure her drink choices for us veered on the side of the chemical and not percent per volume," Darcy reported, stepping closer to glower at the unconscious woman. She touched her lip gingerly and winced. "Plus, she's got a mean right hook."

"Well, that's just going to piss Stark off," Wilson muttered. At their looks, he clarified, "That one of them got that far past his security protocols." The ongoing monologue via his earpiece confirmed that.

"Shit!" Darcy exclaimed. She started to slap her own forehead, but he stopped her and lowered it to her side. Her hand had been close enough to the bruising that there was no good to be had there. "Did anyone check on Jane? I was going to call her, but then thought I should call Mr. Armed-to-the-Teeth and not let them trace the call when they inevitably broke in and stole my phone, you know?"

"Good choice," Steve agreed as he walked up. He didn't even have the decency to look winded and Bucky knew he hadn't heard a single shot. A nod at Sam and the other man ducked into the office to check on the two remaining women. "Foster is with Thor for protection. You can see her once you're cleared by Medical."

She made the expected face of disgust. "I'm fine, swear it. I'll icepack it up back home," she promised. She waved her hand towards her face, ignoring her knuckles and the way her tights were torn to show the abraded skin of her thigh underneath.

He caught her hand again, knew he was being far more tactile than usual but not caring. He turned her wrist gently so that her palm face downward, bruised knuckles upward. Her fingernails were painted the same shade of purple as her tights, save for the tips of two of them that were colored black in an irregular way. "What's wrong with your hand?" he asked, and even he could hear the growl underlying his tone.

Her response was not what he expected. She laughed. Her pulse fluttered closer to normal, but she smiled when she said, "Savanti. He is awesome and deserves a raise or three."

"I don't get it?" Steve said so he didn't have to.

She shook her head, but did nothing to try to free herself from Bucky's grasp. "Shashi loves science, right? Like, adores it. Always reading, always searching, always trying - whatever. It's why he keeps blowing up his lab and Carrie makes the not so small bucks. Anyway, he read about this new nail polish these guys designed for like their sisters or something that tests for rohypnol - roofies, date rape drug, bad things, right? Swirl your finger through your drink and if the stuff turns black you back away as quickly as you can. He got his hands on some and made sure Carrie had some and she made sure I had some. Jess refuses to do her nails and didn't want us shoving our fingers in her drink but I bet she's totally up for a mani of this stuff next time."

"And Vorgensen?" Steve prompted. If a Hydra agent knew of the test, she would have found a way around it.

"Didn't want a mani before we went out and so it sucks to be her now doesn't it?" she stuck her tongue out in the direction of the woman, realized what a scene she made when she caught Steve's raised eyebrows, and amended that to, "I mean, beyond also getting hit with one of those things Natasha gave me. Do you think she'll give me more? Or be mad I used it for this? 'Cause the second one's down one of the idiots' pants in the back stairwell so I'm kinda out."

Stark was now going off about finding the men who developed the formula and making sure they got the right patents and possibly job offers, so Bucky assured her, "Nah, pretty sure you used them just as Natalia would have wanted. Though we have to work on your own defense if your knuckles are that red, sweetheart."

She hummed and admitted, "They do kinda clash with the purple, don't they?"

Steve shook his head and muttered something about her not taking anything seriously. Darcy answered just the way Bucky knew she would with a proudly declared, "Not if I can help it."


	13. Chapter 13

So more than ice packs were needed. Poking, prodding, blood tests, and overnight observation were apparently the norm when Hydra attempted to drug and kidnap you after infiltrating a major corporation to try to get to its resident geniuses. 

Darcy didn't even try to fool herself. This was not about her, this was about Jane. Jane had a breakthrough. Darcy had access. Jane had Thor. Darcy had plans to get shitfaced on her employer's bill. Jane had Thor. Darcy had an ID badge that practically screamed liability. Jane had Thor.

Technically, Darcy had Thor as well. Kind of. He stopped by with Jane to check on her while she was stuck in a bed determinedly not hers and the previously clear-for-New York sky rumbled and flashed and she swore she felt her tips of her hair stand on end. He swore it was a coincidence, but smiled when he said it so she wasn't sure. She took it as a compliment, patted him on the arm and promised that the baddies were busted good and true already, and let Jane drag him off to calm down.

One person who couldn't be dragged off was James. Sam tried once and Steve, the traitor, just shrugged and said something about him being on "watch" for whatever that meant. She assumed it had something to do with him vetting the area and every single person that tried to get near her, Carrie, or Jess, and was frankly just glad he didn't have another zone out.

Of course, a zone out would require him to sit still and focus on something. For a sniper, he really was having trouble doing anything of the sort. He paced, prowled really, from bed to bed, door to window, chart to chart. Still armed, still glaring, still really not making any noticeable sound save for the barely there creak of the older boots he had gone out in instead of his usual gear or the near growl he gave anytime anyone approached.

Jess had woken only to pass out again, supposedly just from excitement. Carrie snuffled and quietly snored pretty much from the moment her head hit the really flat pillow, offering only a token protest that they better be compensated with a bottle of 80 proof for their troubles. That left her and Sir Pace-a-Lot and she had never really been able to sleep in new places that well, especially not after a night like the one she had just had and especially not with that much movement around her.

"I think I'm getting a workout just watching you," she commented, careful to keep her voice modulated so as not to wake the others.

He froze mid-step and slowly turned back around to face her. The glare was still there, but slightly lessened and slightly replaced by a sheepish expression. "You should sleep," he told her, as though it were as easy as that.

"Not with you wearing a hole through the probably-not-linoleum," she replied. 

The expression became more pronounced and it was actually quite adorable, ignoring the part where he'd probably kill her where she lay if she mentioned the fact. "Sorry," he muttered, eyes already drifting back to the door again.

"Pretty sure we're all safe and sound and all that if you want to head out," she offered, giving him the option so he didn't feel obliged to stay there when he clearly had other things to do.

He slid over one of the two chairs in the room, wincing at the slight scraping noise it made, and positioned it just so. From where he put it, he'd pretty much have a clear vantage point of the rest of the room. Clear shot too, because she wasn't about to kid herself about that. "Think I'll stay," was all he said to that.

She watched him watch her and their surroundings for what felt like a very long time, the rhythmic click of the old fashioned clock that hung on the wall the only noise against the newfound silence. Sooner than she thought though, she felt her eyelids grow heavy. She stifled a yawn, and then another. She glared at the line still hooked up to her and wondered if someone had slipped something in it, but it still looked like nothing more than the plain saline they had insisted she be given for some reason. Like her tequila tolerance was in question or something.

"It's safe, doll," he promised, a weird quirk to his lips.

It was either his words or the fact she really had a sucky past few days, because she felt herself actually get drawn under by the pull of sleep. She fought it for a moment, and then realized that was just stupid. She was high up in a literal defense tower with actual super heroes and her very own watchdog - it wasn't about to get any safer than that. Slowly, reluctantly, she let herself drift.

She was in no way surprised to find James in precisely the same place when she woke up.

* * *

She had to give her credit, Jane waited a whole day and a half before she dragged her back down to the lab. Long enough to sleep in her own bed, eat some of the awesome foil-covered meals that her fridge was now filled with, and switch out the purple and black for a shade closer to the chartreuse family. 

The fact she had fallen asleep on the couch before she woke up in her own bed was further sign of a persistent interloper. The fact she knew she had left the window for potential Skype messages open and it was shut in the morning with no pings from certain family members was a little on the worrying side though. She brushed that off to deal with when it inevitably exploded, and moved on to more pressing issues.

"We need to review the data again," Jane insisted. She paced, but in a far more harried form than James had in the Medical suite. For her, it was a stressor response. Darcy had yet to figure out what it was with James. "If she input false findings, or a virus to corrupt the findings, or even just a tracker to report the findings..."

"Because the fancy bio-locks aren't enough to stop her?" Darcy guessed. She understood the worry, but also put her trust in Stark's tech. Well, kind of. She put her trust in the fact the computers Stark designed would be able to prevent the tablets Stark designed from hacking into them or at least send up like a thousand red flags, possibly literally, when the attempt was made. Plus, she had been watching the other interns herself for the vast majority of the time and so any infraction would mean she herself failed and she really didn't like that idea and was actively avoiding it.

Actually, her mind was currently replaying pretty much any interaction she had ever had with Lindsey. Were there tells? Were there signs she should have seen? Hints at what the other woman was up to and what crappy organization she aligned herself with?

It was ridiculous really, and she knew it. Stark had a million security precautions for everything. Her own hiring process had been insane and she had already proven herself to be loyal to Jane for ages. Whatever Lindsey's allegiances were, she had hid them well, and for long enough for them not to be caught until now.

Of course, that begged another question: Why now? Why blow her cover over a couple of measly interns? It had to be Jane's data she was after. Darcy had access to that data which meant she herself had most definitely been a target and had most likely been in line for some fine Hydra questioning techniques.

She was beginning to really not like that thread of thought. She was also beginning to be more than slightly happy she had used one of those little shocky disc things on her and wondered what that said about her as a person.

A passing remembrance struck her and so she asked, "Did you try to get back into the lab?" Jane gave her a look like she was stupid because clearly she had if they were standing in it now. "Not today. That night. After your thirty-plus hour science extravaganza?"

The look remained, but now there was a hint of questioning to it. "No, not that I remember."

Darcy flopped back into the nearest chair and let it roll until it hit the desk. "They don't want to corrupt the data, they want to steal it," she sighed. It was pretty obvious and she could have smacked herself for not seeing it sooner, but blamed the fact of missing it on the past few days sucking like a giant sucking thing. "There were a couple of attempts before I came back the next day. They failed, but I didn't look into why 'cause I figured it was you. My own login and scan worked fine once I remembered it, and didn't max out the magical number of tries, so that means someone else tried a different one first." 

Jane pulled up the chair next to her and started typing away at the nearest terminal. The security log came up and, sure enough, it showed her password had been tried, but no attempt at a retinal or thumbprint scan had been made. A little more typing, and the video feed showed a figure in an actual hoodie trying the keypad, but ignoring the plain gray box to the side that nearly blended in with the wall as a whole. Given that the figure was a good half a foot taller than Jane and a tiny bit of hair that was determinedly not dark peeked out of the hood when the figure stormed away, it was safe to say Jane did not have a sleepwalking moment.

"How the hell did she plan on accessing anything anyway?" Jane asked. She chewed on the end of a stylus, which reminded Darcy it was almost time to switch those out again.

"Either she didn't know how much is bio-locked - which is totally a possibility because she seemed surprised when I mentioned it - or she planned on having someone who could unlock the bio with her," Darcy guessed. She really didn't like the implication of that, even though she had pretty much lived through said implication just the other night. 

She was seeing the big picture now, or at least a bigger one than she had before. Nab the intern, use the intern or at least parts of her to access the lab, steal the data, do fiendish things. She just wondered where Carrie and Jessica fell in on all of this. Were they also to be taken to gain access to other projects, like a goodie bag of evil intentions, or were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in the attempt to grab her?

The other question that rolled around in her under-caffeinated skull was would Hydra just stop now? Go "aw, shucks, that didn't work" and make a run for it? Seemed silly after all the time and effort they put into planting someone so deep into Stark Industries for so long. Or were there already others to take her place? Little moles and molettes ready to dig in and make their lives hell again? She was beginning to question whether or not she would ever let anyone near Jane's research ever again. Just to be safe, really. It had just been the two of them in the past, and they had even survived jackbooted government thugs in a makeshift lab on their own. Surely the two of them could do it now in a fully equipped fortress of one?

Or maybe no moles were needed and they would go for a far more direct route. She was forced to amend her internal monologue when she glanced towards the window, now shadowed with a bulky hulk of machinery aimed right at them even though she swore there had been nothing there only a moment before.

"Get down!" she shouted, grabbing at Jane even as she threw herself from her own chair.

The glass wasn't really glass and was all high tech and whatnot, but even that started to spiderweb and splinter after the fifth shot of whatever they were hitting it with. The alarms had started about a second Darcy noticed the shadow, and heavy metal shielding was sliding down into place all around them, but the splinters were breaking free, the suck of the pressurized internal systems being drawn out into the atmosphere around them making her hair whip about her face. She had lost her glasses when she ducked and covered, and the strands seemed to thread through her lashes and glue themselves to her eyeballs in the most annoying of ways.

The machine had turned, and a thick piece of its own version of metal jutted forward, stopping the downward slide of the protective shielding. She saw armed men at the ready, and knew they were headed her way. "Get to the safe room!" she screamed, already pushing Jane in that direction.

She stumbled-crawled after her, knowing the lab by heart which was a good thing as she could barely see with the papers and hair and everything else blowing around. She stood only to drag Jane to her feet to pull back the damn near cloaked cover and key the initiation sequence, the damn thing set far too high for their current position. The wall slid open to reveal the hidden door, and she practically shoved her best friend inwards, figuring a bruise or two was nothing in comparison to what might await them if they stayed where they were. She was about to follow, wanted to follow, fully planned on following, when she collapsed to the floor, pain ripping through her left thigh and both hands smacking against broken glass in the process, her right wrist buckling from the force. Possibly more than just glass, really, but her palms and wrist hurt too damn much to think about that at the moment.

"Darcy!" Jane yelled, barely heard above everything else.

Darcy turned in time to see her friend lunge towards her from the far side of the safe room, clearly intending on grabbing her and taking her with her and, really, she wasn't going to object to the sentiment. Unfortunately, the automated systems kicked in and the doors slid shut, locking her away and leaving Darcy bleeding on the lab floor, armed thugs swinging towards her as the building as a whole rocked with the force of what had to be multiple explosions.

There was still the stairs. There was still other safe rooms and other locked rooms on this floor alone. She just had to get to her damn feet and make a run for it. Given one leg currently had a hole in it and the other was tethered to the wall by a shoelace caught by security door, she wasn't exactly counting on a rousing success.

She tried to move anyway, her thigh protesting any and all action. There was enough glass surrounding her to grab a piece and slice her lace free, but there was still thugs and bullets and a whole lot of things she really did not want to deal with.

Thankfully, the bullets seemed to no longer be aimed towards her. She heard someone shout about her needing to be alive, which meant Hydra had plans for her that she really did not want to know about. They didn't even have the grace to treat her like a threat when two of the agents finally made it through the opening and into the lab. One sneered at her and the other ignored her to head towards the computers, which were clearly worth more than she was.

She tossed her piece of glass at the first one, which was stupid but felt good when she saw it scrape against his face. Of course, it hurt her a lot more than it hurt him when he kicked her in the ribs for her efforts. She responded as was right and proper, which was with a great deal of inappropriate language, most of which was aimed towards his genetic line.

She expected another kick, or maybe something more severe, but heard the crack of a really loud shot instead, and watched the man flail to the ground. She turned towards the direction she thought it had come from, everything still far too chaotic to tell for certain, and saw a truly beautiful sight of black leather and steel and a whole lot of weapons. 

James took out the second man as quickly as the first and Darcy tried to clamber to her feet, ignoring the pain, to get the hell out of there and to get to the safety of her favorite assassin. Of course, that's when the building rocked again, followed by the smell of something bright and burning, and she watched in horror while James was tossed backwards into the hallway and the room began to smoke and sizzle from the aftermath of whatever the hell had just been thrown at him.

Even worse was the fact that the newly enhanced safety doors to the lab began to close, likely to prevent the spread of fire to the other suites on the floor. That would mean he would be locked out and she would be locked in and she really did not like that scenario at all.

Okay, so there was worse still as whatever had let the two guys in apparently held others who were now making their way towards the window. She flinched at the sound of shots, and flinched again at the screech of metal on metal. Two more of the men fell, and the third took cover behind one of the larger pieces of equipment. She turned again, feeling like she was watching an extremely violent tennis match, to find the glint of silver fingers and a good deal of shiny forearm sticking through the gap in the security door, and the dark barrel of a gun braced on top of them.

There was another explosion, and she feared James was caught in it, trapped in the door like an unmoving target. But the heat and sound came from the other side, the weird plane-like thing the agents had come in blowing up in a truly impressive way. Of course, said impressive way funneled fire and debris inwards, and she covered her head in a sad attempt to protect herself from the worst of it.

She didn't think she passed out, but it was entirely likely given that the next thing she was consciously aware of was the automated fire suppression systems sputtering and failing and the tear of the wind across the now gaping hole in the side of the lab. Her hands hurt, her head hurt, and her leg truly hated her, and there was a chance the tips of her hair were on fire or at least charred, but she tried to move anyway, tried to get a better view of what fresh hell her life had become.

Most of the agents weren't moving, unless you counted barely writhing while they moaned in pain. The door to the safe room was determinedly not open, which she counted as of the good. James was surrounded by tiny flickers of flame and a ton of debris, which she counted as most definitely of the bad.

"James!" she tried calling, not at all surprised when she got no response. "James! Come on, be alive," she tried again, mixing in a few choice pieces of profanity. She couldn't help it, it was her go-to response when stressed and this definitely counted as a stressful situation. She highly doubted anyone around was going to make her put a dollar in the swear jar anyway.

Nothing. There was no response.

"Can anyone hear me?" she called instead. "Automated awesome AI? You there? Anyone?"

There was a crunch of glass and a chuckle she didn't recognize. "I hear you, sweetheart," one of the agents said. Unfortunately, he was not an agent of Stark or what was formerly known as SHIELD. There was blood dripping down his face and his arm was at a weird angle, but he was clearly mobile as he pulled himself to his feet with the help of the side of the desk. His gun was switched to what had to be his good hand and was now trained on her. "Stand up," he ordered and, yeah, that was going to suck.

"Kinda like it down here. It's all homey and glass-like," she replied.

A single shot impacted about a foot away from where one of her hands currently lay.

"Stand up," he repeated. "You and I are going to make sure this little exercise of ours was not a complete waste."

She forced herself to her feet because she was not totally stupid, but she moved as slowly as possible because she kind of was. She took the time to register the wound to her thigh was probably what they would call a graze as it was long and thin and not small and round and it didn't feel like anything like a bullet was moving around inside her - not that she actually had experience in anything like this, but it at least wasn't as bad as she had been fearing. It still hurt like hell, but the knowledge that there wasn't still a lump of metal in her was oddly soothing. She also took the time to glance over at James, or what she assumed was James. She could see the metal arm still squeezed between the heavy doors, but it wasn't moving. It was hard to tell without her glasses, but she was fairly certain there was a mop of dark hair resting on it, and that wasn't moving either.

"James," she whispered without thinking. 

Thankfully, either the guy she was now with was a moron or his ears were still ringing from the explosions. "Yeah, Jane. Foster. Doctor. Worth a hell of a lot more than you. Where is she?" he demanded. "You got her to safety, now tell me where that is and maybe I'll let you live."

"I don't know," she lied. She glanced everywhere but the wall that led to the safe room, eying the computers and rationalizing their worth, and then finally letting herself look back to where James still lay. The other guy didn't believe her and was ranting about something, likely about all the things he would do to her, but she actively tried to ignore him for now. James had his enhanced senses, and she had to believe they were constantly primed to be on, even when unconscious. It had worked with Uncle Jim once, so it was worth a shot now. Under her breath, she tried, "James, please? Help me? Come on, big guy, a little rescue would go a long way right about now."

"You think someone is coming for you?" the agent scoffed, hearing apparently restored. Or maybe he was good at reading lips, she neither knew or cared. "Trust me, your so called 'heroes' are otherwise occupied. Do you have any idea how many men we have on the ground right now? How many Hydra agents are currently swarming this building? We could take it, take all of it, and no one could do a damned thing about it."

He stepped closer and grabbed her by the arm. He used his damaged one, the good one still holding his gun. She briefly thought about trying to get free, then remembered she really didn't actually know how, let alone if she could get the gun away before he shot her with it. "But that's not my mission. If I can't get Foster, I'll just take the next best thing."

"It's locked!" she told him, trying to think and stall and wait for someone to figure out what was going on. "Locked down, needs special access."

The gun was against her head now, sensation she would like to never have repeated ever again. "And you, as her very special assistant, don't have access?" The gun moved, only to sweep towards the computers. "Get it for me, now."

There was a shot, and she honestly needed to take a moment to assess whether or not she was going to die. There was warm liquid on the side of her neck, trickling down to her shoulder and further down her arm. It should have stopped, pooled where the man grabbed her, but his grip had turned lax and she managed to shake him off before he dragged her with him to the floor.

"You okay, doll?" a voice asked, harsh and dry and comforting and familiar in ways she wasn't willing to analyze.

She turned her head towards the door, the crack where it was still held open by metal. The mop of hair had moved and she could just make out a face, sliced and red and maybe a little singed and fucking beautiful. "No, I really am not," she replied, and sank down to the floor next to her would-be murderer.


	14. Chapter 14

Bucky assessed the situation in a practical manner. Lewis was trapped in a lab that was currently both in flames and exposed to a potential drop of over nine hundred feet, the broken window held open by a twisted lump of metal trapped between the security shields. She had visible injuries and had stated that she was not well. Further analysis of her status was required for evacuation purposes, but further information was not currently forthcoming from the source.

He shot an enemy agent that appeared to twitch back to consciousness and contemplated further.

His eyes burned from the chemical-tainted smoke, and there was far too much debris between him and his target to assess her status in the manner required, so he turned to alternative sources instead. He could smell the tang of blood but, again, the smoke overwhelmed much else. Not to mention her own blood now mingled with that of the enemy and it was impossible to separate each effectively. Taste and touch were simply not practical at the given time, so he turned to sound. He sought past the roar of the flames and the sharp burst of sparks to find the steady thrum of her heartbeat, the rasp of her breath, harsh but thankfully not wet. He let himself focus on that for a moment, the knowledge that she was whole and alive, his own pulse threatening to align with the slightly too quick beat.

There was a different noise though, one that was not first there that distracted him as he searched for the source.

There was a shifting, a tinkling of shards of metal and glass as they moved against the ground, the creak of broken wheels as they skidded more than turned on their axis. Lewis had pulled herself upright, crouched now over one of the desks, and he questioned how long he had laid there, listening and analyzing and doing absolutely nothing to help her obtain her goal.

"Buck, are you there? I can't tell if he's conscious or... He went after the lab, and I thought I heard him, but..." The voice sounded through the comm he still wore, jolted him fully back to reality. Other voices responded and confirmed that the Hydra equivalent of a Quinjet had been neutralized, that the video feed of the room was out, that the status of the room's occupants remained unknown. Stark offered to do a flyby, but that was scratched as he reported armed engagement once more. Rogers was on the ground, ninety floors too far away to be of use. Wilson was airborne, eliminating alternative threats. Barton and Romanov were up top, seeking a way down. Thor would have been of assistance, had he been on the planet and not called back to Asgard just that morning.

Steve was apparently an optimist. Or possibly an optimistic pessimist. He began to recite, clunky and awkward, a version of Lewis' talk-down from what they had begun to refer to as her Sentinel 101 classes. He couldn't actually see Bucky, had no idea what the hell was going on with him or what sense may be overwhelmed, but was going to try anyway. Apparently in between smashing in the skulls of the handful of Hydra agents that dared to get in his way if the background noise was anything to go by.

Bucky resolutely did not smile.

A grunt and a curse drew him back to the room before him. Lewis had her back to him, limping heavily as she dealt with something further down on the desk that he could not see, closer to the window now than before. A scrape to the side showed she was not the only one conscious after all, as a man in black tactical gear edged closer to a discarded weapon. A click informed him his own Glock was now out of ammunition, and that he needed access to the clips on his belt. More importantly, he needed access to the room.

His arm served as a glorified doorstop, but it was at least a starting point. He tried to pry the reinforced glass and metal open further, but found the servos in the response mechanism fought against him. He paused, reloaded one-handed, shot the man who would have shot Lewis, and then shot at the control panel for the door itself. A few moments of brute force later, and he was in.

"I have Lewis, we need evac," he reported. He ignored the useless comments about his own status, and listened only to the suggestion to get her to the safe room. "Come on," he urged, heading towards the controls for the room. If he happened to kick an agent or two that were swimming back to consciousness along the way, so be it. He considered it threat neutralization.

"Just a sec," she hedged. She grabbed a bag that looked suspiciously like her gym bag and slung it over her shoulder, wincing at the weight. He really did not want to waste time arguing with her about needless accoutrements, but found there were far more important things to worry about when she grabbed one of the discarded weapons that lay at her feet.

"Lewis!" he snapped, and keyed the sequence for the hidden door. There was no way the woman had ever held a gun in her life, trying a few different things before she found the right combination to make it fire.

"Trust me, this is important," she snapped right back and aimed at the computers she had just been attempting to shut down. The recoil knocked her back with a whimper that hinted at further injuries, and he stepped forward to right her, tossing the gun from her grasp in the process. "Hydra wants the data. Screw them," is what she said by way of explanation for her actions. He fired off three shots of his own, not willing to waste more bullets than that, and was rewarded both with a cascade of sparks and the woman next to him offering up a truly pathetic halfhearted cheer.

He resisted the urge to smile, both at her reasoning and her moxie, a task made far easier when the door to the safe room swung open to reveal a severe lack of safe room. It looked as if the evacuation protocols had already been initiated, but the mechanism that would have lowered the room to a bunker deep below should the tower be rendered unstable was decidedly missing. His reflexes kicked in just in time to catch a certain intern when she damn near threw herself at the opening, calling her friend's name as though that would make a difference.

"Safe room is gone," he reported, still holding her back. "I repeat, safe room is gone."

"Where the hell is Foster?" Stark growled across the line. The sound of his repulsors followed.

"Unknown at this time," he said. He could hope the evacuation protocols had worked and she was sitting safely in a bunker with anyone else lucky enough to make it, but rather doubted it the way the day was going. "We need an alternative evac." There was another explosion, this one sourced next to the computers Lewis had just blown, and he could see a Quinjet severely lacking any of Stark's or SHIELD's markings approaching. "We have incoming hostiles."

"Is the safe room gone, or just blown to shit?" Stark asked. There was a streak of red outside what would have been the window had glass and steel remained.

"Absent completely," he reported.

"There's a ladder, a backup to a backup, just to the left of the door," Stark told him, and he saw it now that he knew to look. "Get in there, shut the damn door, and hold on!"

He pushed Darcy towards it, but she shook her head. "There is no way I'm managing ninety-some floors," she protested. She gestured to the wound on her thigh, highlighting the red lines that crisscrossed her palms in the process.

"You don't have to climb, just get in," he said, and gave her a gentle shove, keeping a grip on her arm until he was certain she was remotely stable. She went, and even hobbled a few rungs down to give him room while he found and keyed the sequence to shut the door again.

It should have been dark, but it was oddly not. Light glinted off that damned necklace she still wore and sections of his arm not currently covered in bodily fluids. That was the first sign of the severity of what had happened. He saw emergency lighting flicker to life roughly every five floors, nothing more than a bare bulb but even that was been welcomed over what was expected. 

He had a feeling his companion might have preferred the dark.

Below them, the shaft led downward to the bowels of the sub-basements of the tower. Only a few of the safe rooms had this additional feature: two on this floor and one on the floor with the community kitchen and recreational area. There were likely more, probably somewhere near Stark's lab or personal living area, but he had only been specifically briefed on the three. The ladder disappeared into the darkness, far past where the tiny bulbs illuminated, faint dots of yellow-white marking the descent. The only thing he could make out aside from the rungs of metal and exposed I-beams was the way Darcy had threaded her arms through and around, the way she held on with everything she had, the way she had her eyes closed tightly against everything around her.

Above them was a different but definitely not better option. Light and dust drifted down along with fiery debris from the ongoing battle, a safe room-sized hole where the ceiling should have been exposing them to the world outside. It was a potential access point for friend and foe, but also left them at far greater risk than anyone would have predicted. They could only hope that Hydra would assume they had chosen the route through the tower to safety and would not think to look for them in what was essentially a fully vulnerable location.

"Come up here," he directed. He stepped to the side, toes of his right foot barely on the rung and left foot braced against the thin ridge of metal from where the doorway would have connected with the room.

She didn't question him, but she didn't seem to open her eyes either as she climbed the few bars, the bag she still carried a muffled echo of her movement. When she was close enough, he stepped back over, body pressed tightly against hers while he held both her and himself in place. "I won't let you fall," he promised.

It was awkward and uncomfortable, wrapped around someone clinging to a ladder, but they were safe, or at least safer than the current alternatives, and that's what mattered.

Of course, that's when the building rocked with yet another explosion and fragments from the opening and probable other unsundries rained down on them from above. He felt her balance waver, reminded himself that she was injured, that her protection was his current mission, and held her that much tighter, bodily covered her from the worst of it. His enhanced healing abilities would recover from the minor scrapes and burns far faster than anything her own body could manage.

The haze of red and white faded above them, and did not immediately return. He looked up to find the small opening now oddly protected, sealed almost, though the light still reflected and refracted around it. He heard the subtle roar of the engines of what he assumed to be a cloaked jet, though who was in the pilot's seat was yet to be determined. 

Still covering Darcy as much as he could, he freed one hand and one pistol. "Barton, is that you?" he asked, knowing the comms should pick up the transmission if external sensors did not. Stark would have compensated for the metal of his own building, and adjusted the frequencies to resist any jamming.

There was the crackle of static, and then, "Better yet, I brought a friend."

A square of color appeared as the cargo doors opened to reveal a slim figure dressed in black, the jet staying impossibly steady above them. Natalia descended gracefully from a line, a second one unfurling beside her, and she maneuvered and swung around in the tiny space as though it was nothing more than a dance, an entire stage laid out before her until she hovered at their side. "I'm betting you'd like to get out of here right about now," she guessed, and he was fairly certain it was not him that she was addressing.

"A grand rescue wouldn't suck," Darcy agreed. She opened her eyes for a split second, only to close them again. "Bonus points if you can do it without me getting shot at."

"No promises on that last part," Natalia admitted, but began to unwind a second harness.

Bucky shifted off to the side again, but only slightly. Natalia needed room to work, but Darcy needed to know he could and would catch her if she fell prior to the harness being locked into place. Natalia herself didn't even question it, nor did she question the bulky bag she was forced to work around. In mere moments, she had their charge secured and tugged on the straps to double-check them. Darcy had not even let go of the rungs.

She hooked Darcy to her own line, and tossed the second to him. He ignored the attached harness and wrapped the thick cording around his left hand instead and yanked once to test it. He stepped off the rung and let it hold his weight, purposely demonstrating its resiliency to a certain intern at the same time.

"Show off," Natalia chided affectionately. He was fairly certain she understood and approved of his tactics. A nod towards the sky and another towards his weapons, and she requested, "Cover us?"

"Always," he promised.

Barton keyed the winch and both lines began to slowly ascend up the shaft. There was a gap of approximately three meters between the bottom of the Quinjet and where the roof should have been, and he was able to both get his bearings and take out a wayward duo of Hydra agents at the same time. He watched as Wilson downed another three from the other side, offering a salute before he jumped back off to who knew where to rejoin the battle. Soon enough though, the jet took off and the doors began to close, so he swung further in and grabbed on to a handhold to prevent himself from falling on his ass. 

He took the opportunity to assess the tower itself and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of visible damage. The attack had clearly been targeted, and Stark's security systems had clearly done their best against it. For the sheer amount of explosions that he himself had felt, he had expected far worse. There were a few broken windows, some billows of smoke, but not much else he could see from his current vantage point before that vantage point disappeared completely.

When Barton headed away from instead of towards the remaining fight, he questioned it.

"No go, my extremely scary looking friend," he called over his shoulder. "War Machine is incoming with Wanda and Vision to clean up the last of this. Our priority is getting the primary targets the hell out of here."

"So they really were after me," Darcy whispered. Her voice was harsh, a hitch to the end of her words. "They couldn't find Jane, not right away, so they were going to grab the closest thing they could. Man, were they going to be disappointed." She half-sat and half-fell into one of the jump seats, and flinched at the action. Her eyes were closed and her head tipped back against the wall, breathing steady but heartbeat still faster than normal. All in all, he'd say she was holding up fairly well, and better than what could be expected of a standard civilian with no previous disaster training save for the alien attacks she herself had lived through.

"You know about Foster's research, or at least they think you do, and that's what they want this time out," Natalia explained, not unkindly. To Bucky, she asked, "Were you able to blow the computers?"

"Nope," he said, just to watch the little lines of frustration form across her brow. With a nod towards Darcy, he smirked, "She did."

Natalia smacked him, which was fair, and then she set to unbuckling the last of the harness from their current charge. The straps hit the seat with a clank, and then she asked, "Is there a reason you won't open your eyes? We're airborne now, bays are shut, and you shouldn't see anything if you don't look out the front." That caught Bucky's attention, as he could not remember when he last saw them open for an extended period of time.

"Totally not afraid of heights - can't be when you're dealing with space telescopes and flying gods," Darcy promised. She reached up as though she was going to rub at her face, but stopped herself with her bloody palms outstretched. Her eyes flickered open for a second, long enough to take in her surroundings, only to close again. They were bloodshot and watery, and she frustratingly had not provided enough time for a full assessment. "I will admit that whole ninety stories over a black pit thing tested that like whoa though. Think I got something in them in the shaft and haven't exactly been able to wipe them clean, you know? Figure blood and glass might be a bad mix with the chemicals and crap." She paused and lowered her hands to her lap, wincing at the action. "Also? Gunshot wounds fucking hurt."

Barton was still in the pilot's seat, but whipped around to demand, "She was shot?" He sounded both concerned and pissed at the same time.

"Grazed," Natalia replied at the same time as Bucky himself did. She stood and reached for one of the many med kits in the jet, exuding calmness though at least some of it was an act put on for their current companion. She had tells, and he knew how to look for them. Her annoyance and frustration seethed from her, and she wore it like a cloak of disaffection. "Let's get you cleaned up. Are you ready to release that gym bag of yours yet?"

Despite her obvious discomfort, Darcy smiled. "So much more than Nikes in here," she said, and finally let the bag drop onto the seat next to her. 

Bucky unzipped the bag, but was confronted only by female accoutrements. "Baby," Natalia chided, and easily flipped through the rest of it before he could respond. Her brow furrowed when she held up a golden box inscribed with runes and pictograms that seemed only vaguely familiar to him. It easily fit into the palm of her hand with plenty of room to spare. "Drives?" she guessed.

Darcy nodded. "Asgardian-grade safety deposit box, really. Stark's bio-locks have nothing on Mister Prince of a Whole Fricken Planet. Doubt even you could get in there without the big guy's help." She blindly grabbed back the box, which seemed to flicker even brighter for a second, and then tossed it back into her bag. "Wasn't going to let Hydra get their paws on them, but there's no reason for Jane to lose everything, right? We worked hard on this stuff. Plus, I knew James would keep me safe, at least long enough to dump this sucker somewhere secure if needed," she explained.

Natalia gave him a look at that, which he promptly ignored. He was not yet ready to analyze Lewis' trust in him, or how misplaced it may be. Natalia let it go, for now, but he knew it would be up for discussion later. She tossed him a smaller med kit and directed, "Patch yourself up so you look a little less like a homicidal maniac when she can finally see you again. No need for her to lose her lunch because you have gray matter on you."

He took the kit, but gave into the churlish urge to say, "Don't know why that matters much. She didn't lose it when I got it on her."

"It was a near thing, my friend," Darcy admitted. She dutifully tilted her head back so that Natalia could rinse out her eyes, the comfort of being able to assess your surroundings more important than inconsequential wounds. They would still bandage those, but at least she would not be in the literal dark about their severity while they did so.

"Thor is going to kill you, Barnes," Barton said cheerfully from the front of the jet. "He's a god, or close enough to it. He's going to kill you and resurrect you just to kill you again. And I'm going to film the whole damn thing. I might even bring popcorn." 

Bucky just shrugged and ignored his antics. He had the feeling saving Lewis' life might be considered mitigating circumstances. To be safe though, he may avoid said teammate for a longer period than strictly necessary. For now, he began the process of scrubbing clean the worst of the slices and scabs to allow them to heal properly on their own. Once Natalia was finished with Darcy, he would let her verify the bullet had passed cleanly through his shoulder and stitch up where the shrapnel had cut too deep on his side to be held with butterfly bandages. That one would take a day or more to close.

"Ouch," Darcy said from his other side. There were other words, most of them profane and all of them valid considering the circumstances. "You are pouring literal acid on that thing, aren't you?" she accused.

Bucky spared a glance in her direction to find Natalia had moved on to the bullet graze, the surrounding cloth sliced open to allow better access. Darcy was watching, eyes bright and wet with a lingering redness that spoke of the effects of the chemicals that she had been exposed to. Her soot-covered face was now streaked with patches of plain skin, clean save for where her usual makeup had run into a mess that was almost artistic in its own right and blended with her bruises from the far too recent incident at the bar that had started this whole debacle.

"Saline only," Natalia promised, and even held up the bottle to prove it. "We're going to need to clean it the best we can so I can assess if you are going to need stitches or not."

"This is totally going to scar, isn't it?" Darcy whined. He knew she was only distracting herself from the current situation though, and let her have her out.

"Scars mean you have a story to tell," he said, though he carried so few himself save for the obvious around where his arm was attached. It was fitting given his memory.

Natalia snorted. "Someday, I'll tell you the tale of a Russian assassin and the disappearance of the chance of ever wearing bikinis again. We can compare and judge him together," she offered.

"Death, Barnes," Barton reminded him, focused again on flying. "He might even make the first one count."

"Will there be tequila?" Darcy asked. Her words lilted upwards at the end when she flinched again.

"So much tequila," Natalia promised.

There was a pause, long and drawn out, enough so that Bucky first thought the conversation to be over. Quieter, and with a sniff at the end that everyone ignored, Darcy asked, "Will there be Jane?"

Natalia looked up from her work, face pensive and caring in the way that usually meant she was going to say something difficult to hear. It was Barton though, who beat her to the punch and said, "We've got every known super hero on the case, plus a few sketchy characters. As soon as we make contact, we've got Thor and his BFF that can see into the hidden corners of the fucking universe, not to mention Wanda who rips minds apart for fun. Now, I'm not making any promises because that'd be stupid in this line of work, but I am going to say the deck's stacked in our favor on this one." 

Darcy smiled at that. It was almost too quick to catch but, given his eyes were locked on her searching for a response, he saw the way the corners of her mouth flicked upward just for a moment before settling back into a wince when Natalia returned to treating her wounds.


	15. Chapter 15

Darcy wanted to go on record as saying bullet wounds sucked. Yes, it was only a graze, but it still sucked. As did the way her her eyes still stung from whatever had gotten into them. She had sliced up her hands before pulling various stunts throughout her life, but she wasn't exactly a fan of that either. What sucked most of all though, was the way Natasha totally gave her a shot of something with a bullshit excuse of it being an antibiotic or for the pain or whatever, and she passed out in like five minutes flat.

The five minutes was because she fought it.

The five minutes was also because James promised her that he'd watch her and her stuff while she was out.

Given her life over the last few days, she was reluctant to admit that it might have been more than just the drugs that made her sleep. She had been exhausted, physically and mentally, and kinda figured that being in a cloaked Quinjet headed to who knew where with two actual Avengers and a heavily armed bodyguard that occasionally acted like one was probably the safest she was going to be to do so anytime soon.

She woke up with the feeling that time had passed, but was unsure as to how much. The sky outside the cockpit windows was a different shade of blue, this one almost tinged with the purple of nightfall, and she trusted that over her watch that they could have messed with while she was out. She felt rested, somewhat, and in far less pain than before. She wondered how much of that was the drugs and how much was the slightly lower levels of stress that she had now versus when she had gone into her non-consensual nap time.

She pushed herself up from where she had been laid out across several seats, and was immediately reminded of the slices on her palms, even if they were currently hidden under several layers of gauze. She glanced around to find that Natasha now sat up next to Clint, both with headsets on but she wasn't dumb enough to think they hadn't noticed her, and that James sat directly across from her, pistol in his lap and eyes trained on her. Most of the scratches on his face were still an angry red, so it must not have been that long after all.

"Told you I'd keep watch," he reminded her. He offered her a bottle of water, smirked at her raised eyebrows, and took a swig of it himself as it to prove it was safe.

She figured pretty much everything was safe when you were a genetically engineered super human, but appreciated the effort. She drank, first to wash the dryness from her mouth and then because it really felt good, and then reluctantly lowered the bottle to make a show of her watching him watch her. Or something.

"Where are we?" she asked. She peered towards the controls, but they wouldn't have made sense to her if she could see them anyway. She also grabbed the Asgardian device from her bag, verified it hadn't been tampered with, and poked at it until it reshaped itself to something other than a cube. Thor had showed her how to do so once, but that was far too long ago to be of any real help. It was luck more than anything that got the damn thing to move. She wrapped it around her uninjured wrist and let the two ends seal themselves to form a slightly gaudy but pretty damn durable bracelet.

"Twenty minutes out from a safe house," he replied, a single raised eyebrow indicating what he thought of her new accessory. To be fair, she didn't know if it would make her more of a target or not. At least she could take comfort in knowing where it was, until some baddie cut her hand off or something to get at it. He shrugged as if filing away the risk to examine later and then amended his estimate to, "Give or take."

"Do I have time to send a message to the fam? They are going to freak if they don't hear from me," she asked. To be honest, they would freak either way, but they would be less pissed if she made the attempt.

Natasha turned around, clearly displeased with the thought and probably rightfully so from a security perspective alone, but James reasoned, "If you send it now, we can bounce the signal and make it harder to trace. I'd say text only though because, darlin', you're a sight, and I'm sorry to say I don't mean that in a good way."

She didn't have her phone with her - sadly that was lost somewhere either in the lab or down the bottomless pit that used to hold a safe room - but a combination of Stark Tech and Natasha's know how meant they were able to rig something for her in record time. She jotted off a message and sat back to wait for the fallout.

She was in no way surprised when it happened almost instantaneously.

"He's demanding Skype," she said dryly. 

"Well, aside from the fact that you're in a secured jet full of top secret tech, you look like hell and that's just a no go for any family member," Clint called back to her, blunt as what she was beginning to think of as usual. No one had let her near a mirror, so she took him at his word.

"Voice?" James suggested.

"Hearing the Quinjet is better than seeing it," Natasha sighed. She was giving in, which meant she probably already had a plan. There was a pretty good chance the twenty minutes just became an hour or more as the pull of the jet indicated they were turning again.

Darcy shared a look with James as clearly Natasha was not in the loop on Uncle Jim. He didn't bother to mention it, so either did she. Instead, she made the call and started with, "Hey there, my favorite overprotective uncles! Background noise is because I'm in a fancy schmancy plane-thing, which is also why I'm not allowed to switch to video." The enthusiasm was not fully there, but she figured she got points for trying. Her voice was still a little gravelly, but there was only so much she could do about that.

"There's a hole in the side of the building, Darce. It's all over the internet," Jim replied. The fact even he found it meant it was pretty bad. His bookmarks amounted to police sites, conspiracy sites, and some cat videos that she had put on there during her various visits for amusement purposes. She was fairly certain he hadn't figured out how to delete them yet.

"But I'm not even in said building," she tried. She sucked at lying though, especially to them, so of course her mouth betrayed her with, "I mean, I was, but I'm not now and it's all good."

"Were you there during the attack?" Blair demanded at the same time Jim asked, "How bad are you hurt?"

She went with Jim's question because it sort of answered Blair's at the same time anyway. "Scrapes, bruises, and something that could reasonably be called a cut," she replied. Technically, there was no lie. The bullet had not actually embedded itself in her thigh but sliced along it instead.

"She's totally lying," Blair complained in the background, knowing her too well. "If not outright fibbing, then obfuscating like hell."

"Yeah, where did she learn that from?" Jim muttered, which earned a smirk from more than one person on the Quinjet. Louder now, he asked, "Where are you being evac'd to?"

She snorted, then remembered her sinuses still hurt from the smoke and everything else. "Even if I knew, I doubt I'd be allowed to tell you. We'll probably have to cut this short too so we're not traced. Not even going to try to imagine the security protocols we're breaking right now."

Blair went off on a rant about military and secrets and how did they even know who she was with and if she was speaking under duress and all sorts of things. It was Jim who asked, "Is Barnes there with you?"

James snapped to attention so quickly it had to hurt. Then again, the height of Natasha's eyebrows might have rated a close second for discomfort. "She's safe, I swear it," he said, an edge to his tone that was both warm and warning at the same time.

"Keep her that way, or we'll have words," Jim warned.

"That's the plan," James drawled in reply. The tension was still a visible thing with the way he held himself, but he put on a good act. He was not at ease, not in the least, but he knew the words and the inflection that needed to be heard, and mimicked it almost precisely.

Darcy could almost picture Jim's nod at that, and knew that in his mind the matter was settled. James would do his best and, if he failed, a black ops Sentinel would try to beat the shit out of part-cyborg Super Soldier. Blair was a different matter all together though, and shouted, "That's it? You're going to leave my niece with jackbooted thugs who could be anywhere and be doing anything to her right now? Just because you once bonded with a guy over powder burns? How do you even know it's him? Or that he's all good and righteous right now? Or-"

"It's him," Jim cut him off. Even through the connection and the background noise, Darcy knew he could probably verify just who he was speaking to. Hell, he could probably verify just how many others were in the jet with them. "And are you finally admitted at she's yours when she's in trouble? I mean, she does have Sandburg blood in her, so she's pretty much always in trouble, but..."

"Don't you dare!" Blair protested.

"Be safe," Jim said as way of goodbye. The connection cut, and Darcy honestly couldn't tell if her uncle cut it or Clint did as they were running out of time before they reached their destination.

She sat back against the seat with a sigh. At the very least, she had delayed them booking a flight to raid the tower. The fact she had told them she wasn't at the tower probably played the largest role in that though, and she imagined at least a cursory search as to her whereabouts was about to be underway. That gave them a few days though, because last time they didn't find her in Norway until after New York was already starting cleanup.

"That's your family?" Clint offered with a low whistle.

"Part of it," she said. There was no need to explain the insanity that was Granma Naomi yet.

"And we broke protocol for that because?" Natasha prompted.

Darcy tried to find the words for that, but found she didn't need to. James did it for her when he answered, "Her uncle has gifts. Think Super Soldier without the strength and he came by it naturally. He was also a Ranger, so think of it as a professional courtesy."

"There were no familial military connections listed in your file," Natasha said with more than a slight hint of accusation.

Darcy sighed and tried to find the words to describe her whacked out family, still surprised that James had given away as much as he had. Then again, he knew Natasha and how to calm her down far better than she did herself. Going with the whole knowledge as a calming agent thing, she explained, "Blair is the actual blood relation, mom's his sis. She's about as flighty as Granma though, so I ended up spending a lot of time with Uncle Blair and his BFF Jim growing up. I'm not even going to get into their own weirdness, but I've been calling Jim an uncle since, like, forever. Mega protective, mega gifted in a sensory overload kinda way. Been trying what we use with Uncle Jim on James to calm him down when he steps back from reality - Super Soldier equals super senses and all that. Kinda works most of the time. I've been told to duck and cover the rest of the time."

James frowned at her, likely for the reality bit, but she ignored him for now. It was easy to do since there was so much more to panic about anyway. Plus, it was the total truth. He wigged out and got lost in his own mind sometimes, be it from his senses or flashbacks or whatever. She laid down some verbal breadcrumbs and helped him find his way back home. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes the tranqs came out.

"Was that the BS Cap was trying earlier?" Clint asked.

James huffed a breath that was a barely contained snort. "Stevie tried. Mind you, he had no idea what was going on and the whole thing is situational, but he tried." His posture relaxed ever so slightly. "Kinda defines the punk, really. Jumps in feet first with or without intel and hopes for the best."

Darcy held up a hand, remembered that her wrist also hurt like hell from when she landed on it during the initial explosion, and made a face. "Wait, so he couldn't see you or hear you or anything and he tried anyway? Fail. I am officially failing Captain America. Giant F."

"No A for effort?" Natasha asked. Clint was already shaking his head. It distracted her enough that Natasha grabbed her wrist and manipulated it in the most uncomfortable of ways, muttering under her breath about disclosure of injuries and to please not take after the rest of them.

To be fair, she probably could have grabbed it anyway, even if Darcy had tried to steel herself against it. She settled for a very pointed, "Ouch, by the way." She didn't even get a raised eyebrow for her efforts though, so she continued, "Nope. The whole thing is figuring out what he's all hyper-focused on. No data means no reliable hypothesis. Really, me whispering, 'James, please save me from the bad guys,' would have been just as effective. Blind hope and all that."

James cleared his throat at that. "Actually, I did hear you, which is why I made the shot." At the look she gave him, he simply shrugged. "Civilian requesting assistance in a hostile situation draws far more attention than Stevie's stammering."

She really hoped that was James-programming speaking, and not Hydra. She rather liked the idea that his gut instinct was to save those who couldn't fully save themselves versus keying in on a potential prize to bring back to his masters.

She had other things to worry about for now though, like Natasha wrapping some high-tech fabric around her wrist, gauze and all, and Clint apparently bringing the Quinjet in for a landing. "Where are we?" she asked since all she could see were the hints of evergreens and fading light.

Natasha ignored her and directed her attention to James when she asked, "How's the shoulder?"

"Good enough," he replied. He then said something else that was totally in a different language, most likely Russian.

Natasha replied back in what Darcy assumed was the same language as she casually grabbed two packs from the storage area. It set Darcy on edge, even when she explained with an eerie calmness, "Go-packs. They have a few supplies and basic necessities. Might not be an exact fit, but it's better than nothing."

She tossed the packs to James and offered Darcy a hand up out of the seat. "Ready?" she asked.

The back ramp was beginning to lower, again showing not much more than tree trunks and pine needles. "I guess so," Darcy agreed, and reached for her gym bag. There was no reason for James to have to carry everything, she wasn't truly incapable. The wound on her leg pulled, and her hands still stung beneath their wrappings, but she could walk and carry just as well as the next girl. She also figured that the go-packs might have the basics, but her own clothing and such were literally right next to her so there was no need to leave it behind.

"Good," Natasha said, right before Darcy felt a sharp prick against her neck.

Almost instantly, the green and shadows became far less green and far more shadows. "I hate you," she managed, voice already slurred.

"Most people do," she said easily enough.

Darcy had the uncomfortable sensation of being bodily lifted, and then her whole world turned black.

* * *

Her next sensations were far more comforting, if not disorientating. There was something soft against her cheek and a warm bulk of weight draped over her. Her head was still a little fuzzy, but she registered that the air outside of the blankets was definitely chilled, her fingers flexing as they sought out the warmth and burrowed back beneath the covers.

"Sorry about that," a voice said from somewhere off to her right. 

She gave in and reluctantly blinked her groggy eyes open, finding the light of the room muted through pulled shades. Her eyes still stung, so the lack of brightness was appreciated, even if it made seeing the room around her that much more difficult. From what she could make out, it was decorated simply with a bed against one wall, a dresser against another, and a chair pulled up near the window across from the door. In no way was she surprised to find James seated in said chair, still decked out in his gear and still with a weapon in hand. "No you're not," she accused. It probably would have had more force to it if she hadn't yawned at the same time.

He tilted his head. "No, I'm actually not," he agreed. "Safe house is safer if you don't know where it is," he said by way of explanation. He didn't look her in the eyes though, so she suspected something else was up.

"Because that's not freaky-scary-hostage-like at all," she glared. She attempted to push herself up a little, and was reminded of how much movement sucked when her injuries flared to life.

James was by her side instantly, physically lifting and arranging her as needed, and oddly doing so in a way that didn't actually aggravate anything save for her patience. "You're also hurt," he admitted, pointing out the obvious. "Figured you didn't need the strain on your leg. Path up to the cabin isn't exactly easy going."

That actually provided useful information. They were in a cabin, which was pretty damned obvious when she looked at the walls and the window frame and everything else. There was only the one window, which made her question just what was on the other side of the wall. She was tranqed because her Super Soldier bodyguard was a mother hen, which was obvious from knowing him for like a minute. "Next time why don't you ask me before you have Spy Girl fill me with drugs?"

"Noted," he said with a seriousness that she really wasn't sure of. Either he really would - which was likely given his usual appreciation for the literal - or he had finally learned the art of being a brat - which was equally likely given the whole kid from Brooklyn thing that was slowly poking its head out more and more lately.

She decided to test her boundaries, or possibly bindings given the current situation. "So, if I decided I didn't want you or your protection detail and wanted to head out on my own for fewer opportunities of being drugged unconscious..."

"Miles or kilometers?" he asked instead.

"Here in the US we tend to use miles, but I've been around the world enough to understand kilometers. Not to mention the fact you're dodging the question."

"Straight out the front door, follow the path for two miles. It's a little steep and more of a trail than an actual path, so I'd recommend waiting for good light. You'll hit a service road and want to take a left. About another six miles down you'll find a proper highway. From there, you'll either go another four miles or another five depending on which direction you take and which small town you want to get to," he recited easily enough. At her look of disbelief, he offered his usual hint of a smirk and added, "This may be Natalia's safe house, but I have one of my own about fifteen klicks North of here."

She scrunched her nose up in doubt. "And you'd just let me walk away? Rescue mission be damned?"

The hint became a full grown grin and the Brooklyn accent was heavy when he replied, "Nah, I'd stalk you and track you and let you think you were all out on your own, but be there in time to catch you when you fell down a ravine."

"Your confidence in me is overwhelming," she muttered, but had a hard time fighting the pull of her own lips. She knew she was in no shape to be wandering around what looked to be woods from her brief glance before she was knocked out. She could do it, but it'd be far more difficult than she currently had the energy to contemplate. So, if her choices were Nature Walk Level 1000 or having Super Soldier Nanny at her beck and call until she could manage on her own again, she was firmly in the camp of laying back and letting him do his job.

He probably figured that out by the twitch of her eyebrow or something, or possibly had known all along, because his next words were sugary sweet offer of, "Hot chocolate?" 

She didn't know if he expected her to actually take him up on it though, but he played along well enough when she agreed, "That would be delightful," in the same saccharine tone. Bonus was that it was actually pretty damned good as well. Totally the powdered kind, but the good powdered kind, so she called it a win.

She sipped at her drink and munched on a really bland protein bar he tossed her that she hoped would not be her sole source of nutrition for the next however many days and played with the bracelet around her wrist, not yet used to the weight. She had a feeling that fresh foods were not the norm in rarely used escape locales and that shelf stable would be the name of the game for a while. Food was food though, even if she normally preferred hers with actual flavor.

There were other things she preferred as well, including not feeling the cloying stickiness of her own blood adhering her clothing to her skin. The possible grey matter in her hair was another issue all together. So, when she dutifully finished everything he had given her, she asked, "Does this place come with somewhere to wash up? Bathroom would be awesome, but even a sink would do at this point." 

"I'll show you," he said, and did just that. He helped her up and out of the bed and then took far more of her weight than she was willing to admit as she hobbled to the small bathroom tucked across the hall. Her muscles had locked up from laying still so long and, mixed with her injuries, were less than comfortable to say the least. He hesitated slightly once she was propped up against the sink, and she was about to tell him that she was fine, but he pointed a finger in her direction and directed, "Stay right there."

He ducked around a corner and she was very tempted to make a snide remark, but held it in with the force of will alone. Turned out to be a good thing because he returned with one of the packs from the Quinjet and a towel that he had procured from literally nowhere.

"Thanks," she told him, and dug in to find some basic toiletries and what looked to be a set of sweats in roughly her size. There was even her own brush from her gym bag, which was so much better than the comb she expected. Tiny tines and thick curls were never a good match.

"Let me help?" he offered. She raised her eyebrows, but he made no move towards her bloodstained jeans. Instead, he very carefully removed the makeshift brace from her wrist and unwound the layers of gauze from her hands so that she could actually move them with near normal dexterity. He glanced at the wounds and seemed not pleased but at least not pissed at whatever he saw there. "I'll leave you to the rest," he said gruffly, and closed the door behind his hasty departure.

Her hands still stung something awful, but she would have been more surprised if they hadn't. Those paled in comparison to when she tried to shimmy out of stiff and sticky denim though. The slice from the bullet had been widened to allow the wound to be treated sans pantsing her in front of everyone. The bandage on her thigh was stained red, and she wasn't sure if she should leave it in place or try to peel it off before trying to wash. She figured it would fall off on its own, possibly with less pain, in the water, and left it as it was for the time being.

She absolutely avoided looking into the small mirror, not ready to deal with that in the least.

She used the facilities and resolutely did not scream when her thigh protested even that simple action. Raising and lowering herself was a bitch, especially when it involved a leg torn open by a bullet. After far longer than she was willing to admit, even though she knew James was probably keeping track just outside the door anyway, she eventually stepped over the edge of the tub to turn on the water. An actual bath was out of the question as getting up from sitting on the toilet was hard enough and she was not about to have her live-in hero come to that particular rescue. There was a shower attachment though, and she flipped that on and let the lukewarm spray wash at least the first layer of unsundries away.

Natasha clearly understood that a girl had needs, and she was pleased to find some decent shampoo and conditioner versus the military quality that had been tucked in the bag. She figured she wouldn't begrudge her the use of such if she was already allowing her use of the cabin as a whole, and washed her hair twice before she was simply too tired to care anymore. A half-assed job of toweling herself dry, and she was stuck as to just what the hell to do with herself.

First things first were undies and the dark navy t-shirt from the bag that almost fit given that the bra included would in no way holster her girls. That way, when James inevitably came to check on her she wasn't a completely helpless dork. Well, a completely naked helpless dork. Details mattered and all that. Second was the now sodden bandage on her leg. It came off easily enough and she resisted the urge to hurl at what she saw. She had treated wounds before, but they were totally minor save for the one Uncle Jim made her promise not to tell Uncle Blair about. This was just gross though.

She groped blindly for the med kit from the bag and slapped the biggest bandaid she could find on it and was going to call it good enough. The bandage was the size of her hand. She didn't even know that they made them that big. She also didn't want to know why That Which Used to be SHIELD considered that a standard size.

"So you like sepsis?" a familiar voice said from the door that was now open, both startling her and letting far too much cold air in. 

Her skin prickled, as did her eyes because the pressure of just the bandaid rather hurt but she fought those at least. Instead, she glared at James and said, "You do realize that I hate you too, right?"


	16. Chapter 16

The rebandaging of Lewis' wounds was an easy enough process. He verified each were as clean as they could currently manage, disinfected the lot, and wrapped combinations of gauze and tape as needed. She had looked away while he was treating the graze, and he made certain to check the healing scratches from the scuffle at the bar at the same time. She didn't want the brace for her wrist, but didn't fight it and most likely figured out she needed it when she accidentally put pressure on it while trying to stand.

Those, he could handle. 

Getting her into the sweatpants was less than graceful but still doable. 

The simple socks were just amusing, as were the purple toenails even though they coordinated nicely with the standard SHIELD blue of everything else.

He had absolutely no idea how she was going to deal with the rats nest that was her hair.

He ignored the way she blushed more at him helping her to get dressed than him opening the door on her while she wore nothing but her undergarments. He could not ignore the way even that little task seemed to seep the last of her energy out of her.

He watched her yawn and tug regretfully on some of the knots with her bandaged fingers, and knew she was tempted to just let it go. Images of too many kids crammed into a small Brooklyn apartments blended with those of showgirls trying to fix what damn near a monsoon had done to their carefully coifed strands mixed with that of Natalia with a broken arm and splinted fingers glaring at him. To take a phrase from Barton, this was not his first rodeo, but he needed to remember how to ride.

"Come on," he grumbled. He wrapped an arm around her waist to support her while she hobbled and grabbed the brush with his free hand. He led her to the main room of the cabin, where the kitchen blended into an eating area that blended into where a love-seat and two overstuffed chairs were positioned around the fireplace. 

He positioned her on the footstool facing the fire he had built up while she bathed, and took the seat immediately behind her. He fanned out what he could of her long hair, and had a brief concern that the brush might not be up to the task.

"Not that I'm complaining, but do you even have any idea what you are doing?" Darcy asked. She settled herself on the stool, and he was in no way surprised when she slouched back to use his legs as a backrest. He moved the lump of wet knots to the side to give himself some room to make the attempt. "Just wondering so I can debate a pixie cut versus a mohawk."

He rolled his eyes even though she couldn't actually see him, and set to work. Bottom to top, strand to strand, just like Mrs. Edwards had shown him when she asked him to help with little Ethel after an unfortunate incident with some mud pies that he was not wholly innocent of. Soon enough, his hands were working on automatic, untangling and smoothing and finding places where she hadn't quite gotten all of the ash or bodily fluids out and doing his best to help.

He felt her relax where she leaned up against him, listened as her breath evened out to not quite sleep but the state right before. He took his time because he could, because he knew she would wake fully and fidget and do herself harm being bored to tears that much sooner if he didn't. When the last knot was tugged free, he stalled further by beginning to braid the long strands back away from her face - just a simple thing because he never could do the fancier ones right - figuring she was going to rest soon enough and that he didn't want to have to redo all of his work when she awoke.

He used one of the multicolored ties from around the handle of her brush to bind it all off, and then nudged her gently with his knee. "You still awake?" he asked, quiet just in case the answer was no.

"I'm here," she insisted around a yawn. Her fingers clumsily groped at the braid before she said, "Nice! I both owe you an apology for doubting your mad plaiting skills and need to downgrade you from hate to dislike."

He leaned back in the chair, but kept his legs steady for her to use and commented, "Aw, you still dislike me? After all this? And here I was thinking we were bonding over using brains as a styling aid."

She shifted slightly, probably trying to take some of the pressure off of her leg, and admitted, "Truth be told, you've already outdone like ninety percent of the guys I've dated for being my own personal version of No More Tangles, but you also got serious demerits for the whole drugging me without my permission thing. Don't think I'm forgetting that anytime soon."

He shrugged as that was fair, but felt the need to point out, "Natalia's the one who drugged you, darlin'."

He could almost feel the roll of her eyes when she countered with, "Because you so weren't in on any of it."

He didn't answer, but really didn't feel the need to. She had drawn her own conclusions, right they may be, and he didn't need to confirm them for her. Instead, he asked, "So, what do you feel like doing before you pass out again?"

She snorted, loud and indelicate. "News flash for you buddy: I may be exhausted, but not likely to sleep anytime soon. Body got enough rest when y'all knocked me out, plus I'm not so good with sleeping in places of the unknown variety. Sorry to say you're stuck with my cranky ass for a while."

He nodded, despite the fact he knew she couldn't actually see him. With a put upon sigh that he hoped she realized was false, he offered, "Chess?" 

They ended up raiding the small stack of board games tucked away on a shelf after he situated her more soundly on the love-seat itself. Natalia knew the fine art of waiting as much as she knew the fine art of concealing any electronic signals, thus the lack of television or wi-fi much to Darcy's consternation. He still knew where all of the communication gear was kept - Natalia had shown him when she helped set them up in this place, proximity sensors and all - but he was not about to risk broadcasting their location just to watch some mindless drivel on a tiny screen.

Yet.

It was entirely possible he would reach that point eventually if the way Darcy both whined and trounced him in Scrabble was any indication.

After she received a triple word score for using the word octogenarian against him, he asked, "You feel up to eating yet?"

She narrowed her eyes in his direction. It would have been more effective had she not been squinting for most of the game anyway. "So you can drug me again and get me out of your way for a while?" she guessed.

He turned so that he was facing her head-on, knew that she could see him as clearly as she was currently capable of, before he said, "I promise I will not drug you without notifying you first."

She raised one less than impressed eyebrow. "Notice how you didn't say you wouldn't drug me again," she pointed out.

He quirked his head in agreement and added, "I also didn't say how much warning I'd give you, but I do promise that, should it be in my capacity to do so, I will warn you."

She scowled, but relented. She liked words and she liked honesty, these were two things he knew to be truths about her and he could at least give her that. When it was warranted. He also knew that she liked certain indulgences, usually of the flavorful kind, so he was in no way surprised when her next question was, "So this eating thing, will it be more of those protein bar things? 'Cause they kinda sucked."

He smiled at that, because it was true. Decent enough for when expediency was needed, but not when there were better things to be had. Unfortunately, that did not mean there was necessarily better things to be had in their current situation. "We have canned, dried, and boxed. Take your pick."

She sighed dramatically. "Surprise me," she relented. She flopped back against the cushions, clearly making no effort to assist in the preparations, and mused, "Though, really, if any of the options were 'bottled' I might have a preference."

He stood and stretched, his own healing wounds pulling slightly with the movement. He had given himself a cursory wash, but was tempted to indulge in more sooner rather than later. He was tempted to indulge in more than warm water too, but pointed out, "Alcohol ain't going to mix well with the pain meds you'll be taking."

Ever though his back was now to her, he could clearly picture her furrowed brow and the way she pouted when she complained, "I thought you said you weren't going to drug me anymore?"

"I said I wouldn't drug you without warning you first," he corrected. He opened a cupboard and debated what her system might be able to handle after everything it had been through, not to mention the variety of chemicals pushed through it in the past few hours. It was nearing midnight now, so he also needed a meal low in sugar and sweets in hope it would help her sleep despite her protests. "I'm warning you right now, full disclosure and all that. You hurt and don't have to. It'd be dumb to not take 'em, and one thing I've learned about you is that you're not stupid."

"Was there a compliment in there? It sounded like there was, buried beneath the insults," she mused.

He opted for soup, grabbing the cans as she levered herself up from from where she had lain. The grunts and lowly muttered profanity were clues to her actions more than the faint squeak of the springs beneath the cushions. There was the shuffling of feet, the unbalanced thump of her weight being carried more on one side than the other, and the the scrape of one of the wooden chairs at the table, all while he opened the cans and poured them in a pot to heat.

He turned around in time to find her fiddling with the locket that he had placed on a napkin near the center of the table. "Fixed the clasp on it for you," he answered her unspoken question. Wasn't quite a lie, not really. Natalia had also helped him reset the panic button and install a tiny tracker that could be activated remotely by her own system and not Stark's. One of several littered through her belongings, but the one he felt was likely the most practical given her appreciation of the item and comfortability wearing it on a regular basis. She had even replaced the ridiculous gum, and he swore he could still smell it above the gas of the stove.

Neither one of them had dared to touch the Asgardian device.

He gave the soup a stir and set the heat to low before he took the few steps over to where she sat. At his offer, she handed the piece to him and let him drape it around her neck, secure it in place and tuck it under her recently braided hair. 

She looked down at it, tilted it this way and that in the dim light from the fire and the single bulb in what passed as the kitchen. The pattern caught and lit, tiny dots of gold reflecting against the dark wood, and he found his gaze drawn to the action more so even than what it produced. 

"Why do you like this thing so much?" she asked quietly, almost reverent against the silence. Then, because she was the Darcy he had come to know over the past several months, she added, "I mean, I have my own reasons and it's a cool piece or I wouldn't be wearing it, but why do you like it so much?"

"Reminds me of my ma's," he admitted, surprising himself. He could see the locket, similar in size and shape, resting just beneath the hollow of his mother's throat. The chain was shorter and the lines were fainter, less etched with time then, but beautiful all the same. He remembered how it looked the few times he saw it open, a picture of his father on the one side and the Lord's Prayer scribbled in blurred ink on a tiny piece of yellowed paper on the other. His pa couldn't always be there for them physically, but his ma said this way he was always there in spirit, right where he needed to be.

The clasp would break on that one more often than not, too delicate a piece for actual everyday wear even though his mother would argue otherwise. She'd try to fix it at night, after dinner while he was supposed to be tucked away in bed. He'd wait for her to rub her eyes and trudge off herself to sneak back out and finish the job. She'd never mention it, and neither did he, but his uncle got him a small set of tools for one of his birthdays and with them a pair of needle nosed pliers that made the work that much easier.

He was drawn back to the present with the sound of snapping fingers. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say you were tripping down Memory Lane and not having a zone out," Darcy said with careful casualness while he blinked to right himself again. Before he could say anything to defend himself though, she added, just as casually, "I think the soup's well past done."

He jumped up to go check, the scent of it already confirming it was slightly scalded but still edible. He needed more than just soup, his metabolism bringing everything about him to extremes, but knew he could survive on less for the time being. Hell, he had survived on damn near nothing on certain missions and still completed the job. His reserves had reserves, not to mention the fight of the draw of hunger had been beaten out of him more than once. Besides, despite Darcy's bravado, he knew she wouldn't last much longer and figured she'd only manage half a bowl of her own before she gave in, leaving the rest of the two cans' worth for himself.

She surprised him and sipped at nearly three-fourths a bowl before the spoon began to draw patterns more than serve sustenance. Eventually, she set it down entirely and asked, "Why did they want me? At that point, they either had Jane or knew they were about to. Bargaining chip? Use me to get to her? Seriously, what was their screwed up plan?"

He thought about lying, but had made himself a promise to tell her the truth as often as possible. He also knew her thoughts would keep her up when what she needed was rest. Peace of mind would lead to peace of body. One less thing to worry about, even if the reasoning itself could be seen as problematic. So he set his own food to the side for a moment and admitted, "There's a good chance you were to be used as leverage. They'd hurt you to get her to do what they wanted versus outright torturing her." 

"Kinda figured," she sighed. She didn't look surprised, just resigned, and he remembered just how many times she sold herself short as a lowly intern. He was starting to think she might even believe it herself. She was strong willed and strong minded, but even the mighty could seem weak depending on who they surrounded themselves with. She lived in a world with heroes and gods and geniuses. Even everyday smarts would pale in comparison with that.

"There's also the fact that you are listed as coauthor on some of her papers," he pointed out, needing her to see her importance, that she was more than she may seem even to herself. "They might have thought they would need both of you to solve whatever puzzle they came up with this time."

She waved her hands in front of her and he noticed a speck of red against the white. He made a mental note to check how deep that particular cut was the next time he changed the bandages. For now, he listened as she protested, "I edited those suckers, not cowrote. Suggested phrasing that resembled the English language to make them more approachable to the masses, checked the bibliography, that sort of thing. The math is way above me, like miles really. And the science? I pretend I'm on like Star Trek or Babylon 5 and make snarky remarks that Janie pretends to give credence to." She shook her head. "Coauthor? She said she listed me as a research assistant to help me graduate."

The first paper post-New Mexico had listed a Darcy Lewis as an intern. The second one had elevated her standing to research assistant. That alone would have been enough for Hydra to want her, and that was before her latest draft had been hacked and started making the rounds with yet another title added. Jane Foster was fiercely loyal, which is how she had inspired such loyalty in return. Bucky had no doubts that she thought of Lewis as far more than just an assistant, and that those thoughts had translated themselves to the scientific community, let alone a different community all together. Mix that with the news feeds of both of them working the same devices in London, and it was easy to see how a corrupt former government organization could make the assumption of Lewis' worth in the grand scheme of things.

She wasn't ready to hear that now though. Too tired and in too much pain. Too overwhelmed already to have more thrown at her. So he let her be, let her process, and didn't delve into truths quite yet. Instead, he reminded her to take her pain pills and drink her tea. When the need for sleep began to finally overwhelm her, he led her back to the bedroom with its recently changed out sheets, and let her lay down. 

He felt the need to do one last perimeter check before he gave in to the want to wash up himself. He peeled his soiled uniform off and cleansed the worst of his wounds, most of them already deep in the process of healing. He scrubbed what he could of his gear, but had already taken care of his weaponry and could not stall with that. Finally, blood-free and in the packed sweats while his own clothing dried next to hers, he sat down in the chair across from the bed to keep watch for the night.

Hazy eyes considered him across the dimly lit distance for a moment before Darcy announced with her usual tact, "I swear to fuck, if you try to sleep in that chair all night, I will kick you in the balls."

He chuckled despite himself. "Not sleeping, keeping watch," he corrected.

Her snort let him know just what she thought of that. She lifted the edge of the blankets up and said, "There's enough room for the both of us. I promise I won't bite."

"Who said I won't?" he countered.

"Get over here," she ordered. "We can both pretend to fake being asleep at the same time."

"And who will keep watch?" he asked, just because he liked the way her emotions could be read in the crease of her brow when she was like this.

She blew a raspberry. "Like Natasha doesn't have this place wired in some way I'm not to know about. And like you won't wake up if chipmunk sneezes outside." She huffed a breath and a strand of hair that had worked its way free from the braid floated and fluttered. She jerked a thumb to the wall behind her and asked, "What's back there anyway? Seems weird this place doesn't have a rear with a view of any approaching baddies."

"Two miles worth of granite," he replied. "Be hard for 'baddies' to get through that without a tell."

"Then what the fuck is your excuse? Lay down," she directed.

He was doubtful, but she was insistent, and he had long ago learned not to question dames. There were a few caveats though, like she was to sleep between the veritable wall of rock and himself. He was able to keep a line of sight on the door and could feel her every movement to maintain status updates on her as well. She didn't even protest that he came to bed armed, with an additional weapon tucked under his pillow. She did, however, wrap her arm up and over his own, fingers curling over the metal as though it was nothing, pressed far closer than was strictly proper despite the decent size of the mattress.

He was ashamed to say it was the best sleep he had in a long time.

He awoke the next morning at his usual time, body too trained to fall out of habit despite the late hour of actual slumber. Darcy still slept on though, emitting tiny little snuffling noises and keeping a death grip on his wrist. Despite the fact that he could have broken the hold easily enough, he lay there for a while. He was tempted to inch forward and away, but it would involve untangling feet as well as blankets. The way she had somehow snuggled even closer would have been scandalous in his day, to say the least. Her uncles would have his hide if they found out in this day, and that was also saying the least.

As he lay there, he reasoned that he didn't want to risk waking her even though the chances of such were low. She needed to rest and heal and would take far longer than his enhanced self to do so. Besides, there was not much for her to do once awake, so why lengthen the experience?

For himself, he contemplated just what tasks he would complete throughout the day. A perimeter check was a given, as was checking the latent communications system to see if there was a message from Natalia. She had promised a minimum of one message every two days to update them on the current status of the search for Foster, with messages to be received far more often if the scientist was located and/or if there was reason to believe the safe house was compromised.

That wasn't to say there would be immediate evac in either situation. Foster was to be secured before risking reunion, and it was just plain idiotic to broadcast the location of the cabin unless there was a direct attack. Even then, there were safeguards in place wherein he and his charge could seek shelter without the need for immediate direct intervention.

In an effort to be thorough, he should verify those safeguards today, perhaps make them part of his daily rounds, vary the path to avoid detection if watched, but it would be best to know all available options and the status thereof versus rushing to supposed safety and cornering oneself instead. Natalia promised they were present and safe, but that safety was to her criteria, not his own. He knew that, in his shoes, she would do her own review as well. After all, he had played quite the roll in training her to do just that.

"You're thinking too loud," came a grumbled whisper from behind him.

"Sorry," he said, careful not to move or dislodge her. She had yet to let go of his wrist and even felt like she was doing her damnedest to draw herself closer.

"Don't think you can help it," she admitted around a yawn. "You woke up and it was like 'all systems initiated, steady to full power' or something. Hard to sleep through the morning bugle call and all that."

He finally started to draw his arm away, not at all surprised when she refused to release him. "I'll go do my bugling elsewhere and let you sleep," he offered.

She shook her head without raising it, his own pillow jostling with the movement as she had co-opted a portion of it earlier that morning, and he had the distinct feeling his braiding skills would be required again. "You're like the bestest electric blanket ever, anyone ever tell you that?"

He knew both Steve and himself tended to run warmer, especially in slumber. He never had anyone actively seek out that heat before. Darcy, of course, had to be different, and damned near tried to cuddle with the metal. She tried to press herself even closer again, her front against his back, and he fought the urge to sigh as much as he fought the urge to give in and let her. Either one would just let her wrap himself around her little finger that much more, really. At this point, he was just happy he could control his body's responses enough to not do something embarrassing like snuggle back or worse, even in slumber. He would never hear the end of that.

"So what kind of badass safe house lockdown tasks do we have for us today? Staring at walls? Pretending to know how to play some board game that secretly teaches elite strategies? Building little villages out of dominoes?" she asked around a yawn. She still had not released his arm.

"I need to do a perimeter check. You need to not leave the cabin, not even to step out onto the porch, until it's done," he replied.

"Banned from fresh air, check," she nodded. There was a slight pause, long enough for him to roll his eyes and know in the pit of his heart that she was going to give Steve a run for the troublemaker title, before she asked, "Wait, there's a porch? What else have you been holding out on me about?"

"I'll give you the full tour once the check is completed," he promised.

She kept him to his word too, and made him show her the cabin as well as the surrounding landscape upon his return. He decided it was best not to tell her about one sensor being nearly tripped. There was a paw print in the dirt next to it, so there was already a likely culprit anyway. He also decided not to tell her about something that would have left a far larger paw print that he swore he caught a glimpse of on the South border of the property. He didn't remember this being bear country, but migration patterns changed over time and the sight of the beast, the feeling of being watched by it as he continued his checks, that outweighed some science report anyway.

"So the creek is a backup water supply and there's totally one of those 'wild' gardens out back, isn't there? The kind where you let them self-replicate or pollinate and such so you have a food supply of veggies if the canned goods don't cut it, right?" she guessed.

He had a feeling that he now knew the setup of her uncles' cabin to get away from it all. Sound enough method, but you could still get screwed over on the crops if bad weather hit or scavengers found the horde and dug it up for their young.

She walked with a limp, and he had the feeling she would do so for several days. The graze hadn't been deep, but muscle and tissue was damaged. It was also her first time with such a wound and she didn't have his healing capabilities, so she had the right to use a little extra caution. Just like he had the right to enforce some extra caution of his own.

She had been standing on one of the rounded stones that lined the bank of the creek as she watched the water trickle by and he held out a hand in offering. She took it and he could feel her slight wobble, just as he could feel how she righted herself with little to no effort on his part. It spoke of her balance and proprioception though, and told him far more than her flippant "I'm fine" from earlier.

Even after she stepped down from the rock, she kept her hand in his. Perhaps it was for stability on the uneven earth, or perhaps it was for comfort, he couldn't be sure. She wasn't about to tell him and he respected her enough not to ask. Instead, he led her around to the solid wall of granite that the cabin was pressed up against, showing her how the stone wrapped around and over slightly, providing a cover that extended for literal miles.

"Still think there's more," she told him while she poked at the rock with a nail covered in chipped chartreuse. She stared at the building itself though, and then to the wooded area beyond it.

"And you probably wouldn't be wrong," he admitted. He knew some of the extras that the cabin came equipped with, but even he knew Natalia probably didn't tell him everything. There was no way she would reveal that many secrets, even when providing them with a safe haven. His own cabin was far simpler but he never intended it to be for a long haul, only a brief stopover with shelter and supplies packed and ready to go. This place though, this was a place you could hide away from the world for weeks or months if needed, with very little additional needs.

"Do you think we're actually safe here?" she asked as they walked back up towards the cabin.

"Safer than the alternatives," he replied, and knew that he didn't actually answer her question.


	17. Chapter 17

Darcy decided that the best part of her temporary home away from home was the tiny porch at the front of the cabin. The overhang protected her from the sun and any precipitation that might fall, though she had the distinct feeling the weather would lean more towards snow and less towards rain in this section of wherever they were this time of year. The wind that the open sides let through had a slight bite to it, and a moisture that made that bite count. She also swore she saw the hint of retreating frost in the morning. The tradeoff for that was the fresh air and the ability to actually breathe versus the feeling of being cooped up against her will. 

Inside was warmed by the fire, but still stifling with the heavy wooden walls serving as a reminder that she was there for supposed protection, that there was an enemy at large, that said enemy more than likely already held Jane in their grasp and that there was not a damned thing she could do about it. So instead, she sat out front and played with her now ever-present bling and contemplated the solitude around her, a tiny notebook she had found used to delineate each and every rant she would subject Jane and the others to upon her return.

It had bullet points and everything.

"You know, Stevie used to have one like that," James said as he leaned against the doorway. He waited until she turned to him to smirk and add, "Don't think he used it for the same reasons though."

"Steve wasn't nearly imaginative enough," she replied. She set the book to the side, knowing he had probably read it already anyway. Super Sight for a Super Soldier and all that. It wasn't like it was private, and she had occasionally asked him for his opinion on the proper phrasing to get her vitriol across effectively.

"I don't know, you never saw some of his drawings. Imaginative is a light word for them," he grinned. He stepped out onto the porch fully and ordered, "Move your rear if it hasn't gone numb yet."

The wood of the bench she sat on was, well, wood, and not the world's most comfortable thing, but she'd had worse before - see the gravel and metal covered roof in the New Mexico sun for an example of that. Still, she did as she was told and stretched to try to get feeling back into her bones. Her leg reminded her that it still didn't like her, but she knew it'd be like that for a while and there wasn't much she could do about it. There wasn't much she could do about most of her injuries, really. A med kit and an old school soldier was a far cry from a modern hospital, even given that the kit itself was slightly on the advanced side.

He plopped down a throw pillow from the couch and motioned for her to sit back down again. She did so, rolling her eyes as it was expected anyway, even if the difference was damn near divine. He then carefully wrapped a quilt around her that he had found who knew where from inside. "Don't need you catching ill because of your stubbornness. Those uncles of yours would have my hide," he said by way of explanation.

She snorted, but gave in to the urge to cuddle up in the warmth. He must have hung the thing by the fire first since it both smelled like charred wood and was nice and toasty. "Jim's not that bad. You know that, right?" she asked. "The whole saving me from getting Hydra'd means you're on the side of the good in his book."

James shook his head and sat down in the bench next to her, sans pillow of his own. "Not Ellison I'm worried about. Sandburg would find a way - it's always the little ones you should fear."

It was a true enough assessment, and he chuckled when she didn't correct his assumptions. 

They sat together and watched as the sky began to turn. A sunset could be damn near gorgeous in a place like this, she knew that all too well, but there was an underlying gray-white that foretold the incoming weather system as much as the temperature of the air. Instead of bright and bold, the colors were muted like watching an old time show that didn't quite get the technicolor right. Still pretty, but missing something essential. An apt metaphor for her life.

"Come on, let's go in," James said with a gentle elbow to her ribs once there was more black than any other shade to the world around them. She held back the wince because she knew he would worry and, besides, there wasn't much that could be done for the bruising anyway. "I'll even let you choose which cans we'll have tonight."

"It's more fun when you remove the labels and have to guess," she told him, earning a horrified expression in return. "What, you've never played Mystery Meal?"

"Food was scarce and then food was sustenance, sweetheart," he told her, not unkindly. She still felt like an ass because she should have remembered the whole rations and then subjugation thing. That feeling lessened slightly when he shrugged and said, "Technically damn near every night was Mystery Meal night. You never knew what you were going to get, just hoped there was enough gravy to make it edible."

She pulled cans at random from the cupboard anyway, eyes closed and trying her damnedest not to giggle at the gagging noises James made behind her. She eyed her selections and tried to figure out what she could do with them, eventually grabbing a box of slightly stale pasta to go along with them. The end result was something vaguely tomato sauce-like with slightly soggy veggies mixed in poured over noodles.

She took a tentative bite and made a face. "Not bad, but could do with some salsa or hot sauce or something to spice it up a bit," she commented. Enough hot sauce could cure the world, or so her mother once told her. She had attempted one of Blair's recipes and failed miserably at the time, which had led to them poking at a quinoa mixture smothered in enough Tabasco to make it a soup.

James took a bite and swallowed it down, staring at the pot while his tongue circled around his teeth. "Not as bad as Farnsworth's cooking but, doll, how about I make the meals from now on?" he offered.

She snorted, not actually offended in the least. "They totally made you try the Cheez Whiz, didn't they?" she guessed with a laugh.

He pointed at her with his fork and declared, "That stuff is a crime against humanity." He shook his head. "Why would you ever disrespect spaghetti enough to do that to it?"

"It wasn't spaghetti, it was ramen," she defended herself. She took another bite of her concoction before she said, "And I saw some of that here too, so don't knock it quite yet."

James put down his fork. "There is no way, on this green earth, that Natalia would ever stock a safe house with that. Even Barton fears it."

"Ramen," she clarified. "Dried noodle bricks that you cook with hot water and flavor with a packet made up of ninety percent sodium and ten percent illegal chemicals if you're doing it right. You saw it at my place and knew it then. I'll make you some. You'll love it," she smiled, mainly just to see his reaction. Big bad scary super assassin judging her food choices was just too good to let go of. Even if the mention of home, as new as it was, brought up feelings she wasn't fully ready to deals with yet.

He told her he would do the dishes and gave her a chance to wash up for bed, even if she planned on staying up for a while longer yet. She wasn't going to look a gift assassin in the mouth, so she made her way to the bathroom and carefully removed the wrap on her wrist, and then the gauze around her palms so that she could wash her face. The black eye was barely a shade of green now, and her swollen lip pretty much nonexistent. Her hands were getting better as well, and she could probably do with only slapping a bandaid on the really bad one, if it'd stay in place. The cut was at the annoying part of her palm that nothing stuck to though, so she wasn't quite sure how that would work.

She glanced at the door to make sure it was closed, and then gingerly pulled up the edge of the shirt she wore. Black and purple marred her side, and at least two ribs protested when she pressed gently against them. "Fuck," she swore under her breath.

"They kick you while you were down?" James guessed. She was getting him a bell. Or figuring out how to make a lock. One or the other.

It was a fair guess given that the bruising was damned near in the shape of a boot print, so she didn't deny it. Instead she said, "What do you think, was he a size ten or eleven?"

"Eleven and a half and you should have disclosed this when we first assessed your injuries," he chided. He was pissed, even she could see that, but it seemed less at her and more that it had happened in the first place, which was at least something she could work with. He stopped her from lowering her shirt back down and palpitated the injury with careful fingers. He used his real hand, the flesh warm against her chilled own. She was just glad that she had opted for a sports bra from her gym bag that morning considering privacy and body space were apparently a thing of the past with him, at least when it came to injury management. "Lucky they weren't broken. Could have popped a lung. Does explain why you have been favoring that side though," he mused with a grumble. 

"'Cause the bullet wound and broken wrist aren't reasons enough?" she shot back at him, letting her anger get the better of her. She was tired and she was sore and she was in a place she didn't want to be with someone who might not be so bad save for the part where he seemed to think everything she did was wrong and that she was some useless chick to be protected. Probably not intentional on his part, but her mind was interpreting his actions as such and it was getting old. Quickly. 

It wasn't fully her fault and it wasn't fully his fault but, damn, the world really sucked right now.

"Not broken, light sprain at worst," he corrected. He even had the gall to smile. It didn't reach his eyes though, a clear tell that he was worried.

She felt her anger deflate and sighed instead of seethed. "Look, I'm sorry about not telling you, but I really did think a little black and blue was nothing in comparison to everything else." She had seen the bloody gauze in the trash, and not from her own wounds. She would have, and probably should have, called him on that, but the whole Super Soldier thing meant he was mostly healed by now anyway and she really couldn't tell what had happened to him in the first place. His unmarked skin was not going to help any argument she presented.

"Nothing to compare, darlin'," he replied. His fingers skidded across her skin around to her back and she couldn't tell if he was checking the posterior ribs or just poking at her for the sake of poking at her. "An injury is an injury, simple as that. Don't matter the severity, it's still there."

She scoffed lightly at that. "I have it on good authority that Natasha once fought an entire battle with a broken ankle," she reminded him.

His lips flickered, but did not fully curve upwards. "Natalia's got the training to look past things to get the job done. Training no one should ever have to go through at that. She would have had to change her tactics though; make sure she didn't lead with that foot, protect her weak side, that sort of thing."

"And I don't have that training," she guessed. That meant every side was her weak side, and she had no idea how to protect that. It was kind of annoying. She missed her taser. 

He cupped her cheek to tilt her chin towards him and make her look him in the eyes versus glancing away like she had tried. "Doll, if I had my way, you'd never need it," was all he said. There was a sincerity to his words that was frankly frightening, but it was also enough to make her not question it, or him for that matter.

He backed away then to let her wash up, but stayed just within the doorway the entire time, undoubtedly looking for tells of other "forgotten" wounds. There weren't any, not really, but she swore she could fell his eyes narrow every time she moved in a way that accentuated a scrape or scratch. When she finished washing her face and brushing her teeth, he insisted on seeing to her hands himself and cleaned each one with a patience she simply didn't have. While he agreed most of the cuts were likely fine on their own, he still took extra care with the deeper one and checked it for infection and for remnants of glass as an explanation as to why that one was worse than the others. Of course a bandaid wasn't enough for him, so gauze was once again wrapped around that particular wound, though it did solve the problem of keeping it in place.

"Good to go?" she asked hopefully. 

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm not pantsing myself for your entertainment," she protested.

He crossed his arms.

"Fuck," she capitulated.

She pulled her workout pants down and let him have his look at the graze across her thigh, but made sure to bitch the entire time. She varied her complaints between violation of privacy and the fact the pain had gone down so clearly it was getting better. He countered with arguments of the need to clean it daily and used fancy words for all types of infections, some of which she was fairly certain he was just making up. The end result was the sting of her wounds and the fight of a level of exhaustion she didn't think she had in her, and James looking far too smug for his own good.

He still took up position in front of her when she slept though, so it wasn't all bad. She just wondered if the metal arm tucked around her own was to serve as a shield or security blanket.

She woke up the next morning when he tried to sneak away from the close cuddle that had defined most of the night because men were stupid and even trained soldiers didn't understand the concept of subtlety when it smacked them in the face sometimes.

"You are my personal heater and are not allowed to move until I say so," she muttered around a yawn. The cabin wasn't exactly drafty, but heat was not its forte. Then again she always preferred warmth over cold, which explained the vast majority of her wardrobe choices.

"I'll get a fire started if you mix up the batter for some pancakes," he wheedled. "It involves adding water to a mix - I don't think even you can screw that one up."

She poked him because she could, and asked, "Am I allowed to get the skillet started, or is that too advanced for my current skill level?"

He pretended to muse on that for a while before he shook his head and said, "There's a chance of flames involved, even without the stove, so maybe not."

She poked him again, to which he responded with a push to her shoulder. Not hard, but enough to dislodge her from her nest of warmth so she frowned and maybe technically pouted when he used his freedom to escape and she reluctantly followed. She grabbed one of the zippered sweatshirts as she headed for the kitchen and wondered how long it would take him to realize it was the one in his size and not her own.

The pancakes were edible - which she pointed out repeatedly - but sadly lacking with the bacon. He didn't want her washing the dishes and getting the gauze on her hand wet, so she dried and then had the pleasure of being bored to tears inside while he did his checks outside. 

Well, maybe not completely bored. She found more than a single hidey hole and raised her eyebrows at what she found inside. A knot in the wood led to a release of a panel and a stash of cash in multiple currencies. A brick on the side of the fireplace that was a slightly different shade than the ones around it led to a control panel that she was kind of afraid to touch. The rug in front of the love seat pulled back to reveal a board that raised up and hid a lot of very pretty and very sharp knives.

Spies were kind of cool.

Uncle Jim had taught her about the care and feeding of blades far before her pacifist mother knew enough to voice her disapproval. As such, James returned to find her seated at the table with a handful of classic weaponry, a whet stone, and some oil. The whet stone was completely not needed because apparently world renowned assassins didn't keep dull blades on hand, but an extra coat of protection against rust and dust never went unwanted. She may not know how to fight with a knife, but she knew how to keep one in good condition for those who did.

"Ellison?" he guessed. He tossed one of his own knives on the table next to her as he walked by. She knew better than to think he didn't have like another eleven stashed away on him, but wasn't sure if he was offering or planning on using the cleaning kit himself. She decided to treat it as a test of her skills and set to work on it while he fussed with something in the kitchen.

He returned with two glasses and now it was her turn to raise a doubting eyebrow. She took one look at the frothy, yellowish, room temperature mixture and simply said, "No."

"It's milk," he replied, like he thought she didn't know or something.

"You know your thoughts on Cheez Whiz? Amplify those for my thoughts on powdered milk," she told him before she returned to the task at hand.

"It's not like there's any cows around," he reasoned.

She paused just long enough to look him in the eye so he knew she was serious when she said, "Crime. Against. Humanity." He honestly looked confused, and maybe a little hurt that she didn't accept his offering. "I am perfectly fine going dairy-free if it means I don't have to drink that abomination. There are other liquids available."

He huffed, and she couldn't tell if it was in amusement or not. "Fine," he relented and pulled the second glass closer to himself, clearly not about to let it go to waste. "Tea?"

"That would be lovely," she agreed, and went back to work.


	18. Chapter 18

The sensor had been knocked again. Not fully, not enough to trip the alarm, but the dirt around it was disturbed. He searched outward in a radius wide enough that he should have found something, but there was nothing. No boot print. No paw print. Nothing.

To say it had his hackles up would be an understatement. Add that to the constant feeling of being watched, and he was about ready to evac to his own place. At least there he knew the traps would take out intruders instead of ring a doorbell for them. He didn't want to frighten Darcy, not yet, but he was getting close to telling her sooner rather than later. Might as well let her have a few creature comforts for as long as possible. 

She wasn't trained, not like him and not like Natalia. He grudgingly admitted to being pleased she knew how to care for a knife, though he had yet to determine if she actually knew how to do anything with one. He was secretly more pleased that she had found the stash, had even thought to look for it, and wondered what else she had found while he had made his rounds.

He pretended to look over his own blade with unnecessary detail while he finished the second glass of milk. He could tell her work was true and was tempted to toss her the one with a nick two inches up from the hilt to see what she could do with it, but saw the way she kept glancing at the door and knew she was going to go stir crazy if he kept her inside much longer.

She put the lot away while he rinsed out the glasses, and he had a fair idea that she wanted to keep at least one for herself. Natalia wouldn't mind, weapons were to be used after all, but he still didn't know if he could trust a myopic civilian with an accessory that could disfigure or maim her.

He waited until after lunch to ask. He had already unlocked the message from Natalia that verified Foster was still AWOL though they had a possible lead but was avoiding telling Lewis that her indefinite stay was, well, indefinite. She was bored and clearly not used to extensive amounts of downtime without readily available distractions. She couldn't read for long periods of time without her glasses, board games got boring, and there was a chill to the air outside that was not immediately countered by the clothing gifted to them.

"I've got a trick," she replied. It didn't quite answer his question, but it at least piqued his interest, so he gestured for her to continue. 

She made what he now recognized as what she called "grabby hands" and he deduced she wanted a knife to demonstrate with. He queried his own reflexes and found them sound and so, with lack of a dulled practice blade available and a distain filled look at the clunky and unbalanced silverware, he offered her the one from his left boot.

She tossed it from hand to hand for a moment and he waited knowing that surely her trick was more impressive than that. It turned out she was testing the balance before she rested the blade perpendicular to her outstretched finger on her left hand. She kept it steady there for a ten count, then tossed it upwards and grabbed it by the hilt with her right hand midair.

"Ta-da!" she said with flourish upon completion. He easily dodged the way her hand moved with the announcement.

"Very nice," he admitted. "Ellison teach you anything else?" He knew an old Ranger trick when he saw one, and assumed the need to futz around was more than just genetic in her chosen family.

She offered a wry smile and guessed, "You mean anything actually useful like hitting a target?" She shook her head. "Yeah, no. See the part about my pacifist family. Parlor tricks sans parlor only for this girl. My taser was a hard won battle of obfuscation and lies after mom read an article about someone having a heart attack after getting hit."

He nodded, and an idea that he knew he would probably later regret came to mind. "Wanna learn?"

It was an easy enough matter to choose a tree in an area somewhat protected from the wind. Her without her glasses was not necessarily ideal but, when it came down to it, she had shown a propensity to lose those in a time of crisis anyway so perhaps it was better in the long run that she learn the task without their aid. It was a simple target with a simple blade and an eager student. He had taught dozens of others in the past, so it really should not be an issue.

It was an issue.

Every time she missed was met with a mixture of curses and laughter. By the sixth time he corrected her posture, she was far enough gone to break into a fit of giggles, swearing that she was suddenly ticklish, and it took a good seven minutes for her to recover enough for him to hand her back the knife without fear of her cutting herself.

She was not his most apt student, but she was his most entertaining. 

He found he rather preferred that.

Once the original piece of paper he had rigged as a target was good and shredded, he moved to replace it. She had managed to hit the edges if not the center, and had a roughly forty percent success rate. She waved him off from the replacement though, and insisted she had something else to use instead. He let her scribble for a moment, suspicious when she asked if he had any known lingering visual triggers. When he shook his head, she held up her masterpiece: a cartoonish representation of the current Hydra logo. 

"Hail dickheads," she announced when she hung it up in its place of honor. He would have felt bad about decimating her artwork, but the impulse was countered by the way her aim had greatly improved. He did, however, make a mental note to check her injured wrist when he caught her manually palpitating it and then quickly pretending she wasn't when she noticed his attention.

The sun had not yet set but the shadows had grown longer and the cloud cover heavier with a mixture of the lateness of the hour and the approaching storm when he called a halt to the day's activities. He led her back to the cabin, but insisted she stay within the treeline while he verified everything was still secure. When he returned, he found her not facing in his direction, but deeper into the surrounding woods, knife unfortunately lax in her hand.

"Problem?" he asked, instantly going on alert. He had found nothing immediately noticeable as out of place and trusted his senses more than even Natalia's fancy electronics, but that didn't mean something hadn't occurred while he had taken his leave.

She shook her head but he didn't miss the way she gripped the knife he had left her with just a little bit tighter before forcing her fingers to relax again. "There was a cat, I think?" she said with a severe lack of certainty. "Like a bobcat-type cat, but maybe smaller. Lynx maybe? Not scary, just kinda appeared, decided I wasn't food, and moved on. Surprising. Didn't know there were any around here."

He looked in the direction that still held her gaze, but saw nothing. She did say it was already gone but that didn't mean it didn't warrant review. He motioned for her to stay put and ventured a little bit further out. There was no cat, bob or otherwise, but there was a paw print that served to verify her claim. He ignored the much larger print several paces deeper into the shadows. Clearly it was older as, if a member of the feline family surprised her, a member of he ursa genus would have warranted a much stronger reaction.

"Clear," he announced upon his return. She rolled her eyes, but he couldn't tell if the action was directed at him or herself. He could, however, tell that she gave in to the urge to look back several times as they made the walk back to the cabin.

The first wave of the storm hit while they ate dinner. A drizzle of rain that became light flakes that may or may not still be there in the morning. She shivered dramatically and took to wandering around with one of the spare blankets draped about her for the rest of the night. He didn't see how it could possibly offer that much warmth the way she wore it like a cape, but did not protest when she insisted it be added to the bedding for the evening. 

Just because he ran warmer did not mean that he liked the cold.

The first alarm was triggered at approximately four in the morning. Multiple power sources had been cut, and they had failed over to the backup to the backup supply. Visual confirmation was unattainable given the continued snowfall and the lack of outdoor light sources. He closed the bulletproof shades and moved on to other sources of information instead. Natalia's sensor relay showed at least three alarms had been disabled prior to the one that woke them and gave a rough location for anyone incoming given the decreasing distance from the cabin.

"Man, I knew this place was wired," Darcy whispered from his side.

"Dress for warmth, we may need to evacuate," he warned as he sized up the probabilities and methods of attack.

He donned his combat gear and as much weaponry as he dared. He turned to verify she had done as directed, and watched her pull sweatpants on over her workout leggings and choose her gym shoes over the cloth-based ones she had worn on the day of the initial attack. She pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail and he caught a glimpse of red against the white bandage on her palm again. They would have to deal with that again later.

One thing that he was not willing to deal with was the gym bag. "No," he said succinctly. At her look, he narrowed his eyes and insisted, "It stays here."

"It's loaded with a first aid kit, six knives, and a gun I found by accident," she replied. She paused and hefted the admittedly lighter than suspected item up onto her shoulder before she decided to sling it cross-body style instead. "Oh, and like every clip I could find because I didn't know which one would work and both U.S. and Canadian currency from the stash I found because I figure we have to be close to the border if not across it."

He resisted the urge to sigh and settled for asking, "Where did you find the clips?"

He checked the ammunition against his own and took only what was compatible, which lightened the bag further. She had, of course, obfuscated, and added spare clothing as well, but he was not going to call her on it since it amounted to a spare sweatshirt that might have even been his and an extra pair of her leggings and socks of all things. The clothing was wrapped around the rest of the gear in a way that limited potential noise, and he reluctantly admitted it was a sound decision.

They were surrounded now based upon the screen that had been embedded in the wall behind the false facade of wood. More men than strictly needed to obtain an intern, which meant they knew he was there with her. He could have snuck out and dealt with the agents head on, one by one, but any exit would make a likely entrance and there was no way he was going to leave Darcy unguarded, not if he could help it. Instead, he weighed the options of making a run for it straight through the front door versus staying behind the barricades for as long as possible. A run would mean any man he didn't take out in the initial assault would be on their trail immediately and the second he was distracted someone would make a move on their prize. Staying meant fish in a barrel.

"Option C," he decided, and ignored Darcy's protests of not knowing what A or B were to start with. The door was now being bombarded with a battering ram and would likely not hold for long. If it did, he knew the explosives would come out next anyway.

The hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom ended with a bookshelf that spanned the short distance. Said bookshelf slid back easily enough when the correct sequence was keyed from the hidden panel in the side, revealing a long metal-lined hallway with emergency lights that lit up neatly as soon as he pushed his charge through.

"I thought you said it was two miles of granite," Darcy protested.

"I didn't say it was solid," he countered. The door to the cabin splintered, and he could make out the glint of night vision goggles through the small opening before the bookcase could slide back into place. A shot took out that single agent, but he could not confirm whether or not any others had seen the passageway.

He grabbed her before she could wander too far and pressed the hidden hand plate to reveal another passage. "That particular exit should keep them busy for a while," he warned as he pushed her through to the much safer one. Natalia hadn't even bothered to delineate what types of traps and triggers she had set there, and had only warned to avoid it. It was a sign of trust, or possibly resigned obedience, that Darcy simply followed his lead.

Their own chosen escape path began with a set of corrugated metal steps steep enough to be not much more than a thickly runged ladder. There were handholds, and he saw that Darcy made the most of them as she picked her way down even though he would have preferred a slightly escalated rate of speed. He once again reminded himself that she was a civilian and an injured one at that, she was not expendable, and his current mission was to keep her safe and not take her out. 

It was such a vast difference from what he had been forced to do for so long that his mind kept sliding back to methods of solitary escape and avoidance versus the protection detail to which he was currently assigned. Alone, he would have had far more options, most of them relying upon his superior strength and stamina. One look at the knotted ponytail in front of him though, and he knew he would never resort to any of them. 

Darcy was more than a mission. She was someone he felt he might actually trust, and that was a hard thing for him to admit. Even harder was the urge to call her a friend. She used the term easily enough, but he still had his doubts. Assets didn't have friends, didn't have ties that could compromise emotions and hinder what needed to be done. He wasn't an Asset anymore, but the only people who he had let in to date were those who could take him down if he slipped back into that mode. The woman in front of him most definitely didn't fall into that category. She was for all intents and purposes as normal as things got in his new life, and he had to ask himself why he was so grateful for that fact.

At a later time though. For now, they needed to seek shelter. The escape route may or may not have been blocked from any arial sensors and he simply could not take the chance of remaining in one place to find out. Hydra would come looking for them. They would find the first passage and, when they didn't find their prize, would search out secondary means. If Natalia's tech did prevent them from finding the route they were using now, it wouldn't actually deter them so much as infuriate them. They would bomb the location in an attempt to cut off any hidden access points and dig in from there, if they didn't just decide to leave them to die in the rubble after declaring him too much of a nuisance to deal with.

Darcy had stopped at the base of the stairs and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Where to now, oh great leader?" she asked. She rubbed her thigh absently and he wondered which hurt more, the thigh or the palm as both would feel the strain soon enough.

Unlike above, there were no gleaming metal hallways. There was stone and cement and bulbs that were few and far between. The air managed to be both stale and dank at the same time, and the temperature was far from controlled, as evidenced by the ill-hidden shiver of his companion.

There were benefits though, not the least of which was the wall of metal cabinets lining one rough hewn wall and a satellite phone on a dust covered desk against the other. Despite the age of everything else, the phone had the Stark logo on it and he had a feeling that the words "secure line" would be an understatement.

Something didn't sit right with him though, and that something was voiced by Darcy when she asked, "Okay, so stupid question but humor me for a moment? Just where did Natasha get a place with this many bells and whistles? It screams SHIELD, and with SHIELD being Hydra and Hydra being SHIELD, is it really a surprise we were found sooner rather than later? And that was totally more than one question but whatever."

She tugged on her ponytail while he contemplated her words, knots coming loose from long practice, or so he assumed. The place had originally been owned by SHIELD, but supposedly had been off the books for nearly fifty years. It was a gift to Natalia from Fury himself. Torn down and rebuilt in a place last listed as decommissioned decades ago. The only way Hydra would have known about it would have been digging through ancient files and/or having previously sorted through said ancient files for likely safe houses and watching those for movement. They might have done so looking for the stray SHIELD loyalist to take out or convert, and had gotten lucky when they got a hit so soon after the attack on the lab.

So he told her as much.

The sat phone no longer looked nearly so tempting, but the gear within the cabinets was another story altogether. He checked it for bugs while Darcy pounded the dust out of what he considered clean enough. The jacket sized for Natalia didn't quite fit Darcy well enough to zip or really fit over what she was already wearing. She took the knitted hat with something akin to glee though, and readily accepted a scarf and pair of gloves as well. Given that there was a collapsible bow and several quivers of arrows, he suspected just who Natalia expected to be with her should she need the escape. Barton's stature was not his own, but the hat and gloves at least fit even if the jacket and snow pants did not. He could block out the cold if needed for the mission, and his own gear gave him far more freedom of movement anyway.

He pocketed another two guns, scope, binoculars, and ammo before he reluctantly strapped a knife under the cuff of Darcy's sweatshirt and clipped another one to her sweatpants. "Not toys," he reminded her.

"Got it. No tricks," she replied easily enough. She eyed one of the guns and he shook his head. He had seen her prowess, or lack thereof, with such an item in the lab and was not about to risk her with one now.

They made their way further down the corridor, and found a cot and several blankets tucked into a small alcove. He was tempted to let her hole up here while he took care of the intruders, but the idea of her slowly suffocating while trapped under the inevitable rubble was one he just could not shake. He could have stayed there with her, of course, but that would risk both of them being cornered while Hydra attacked from either side and there was simply no place to stash her and/or give him the freedom to move to do the job that needed to be done. 

The exit back out into the real world was only a short distance further down the hall. He knew from Natalia that it was hidden within a supposedly decrepit and abandoned root cellar that had seen better days decades ago. He also now knew to suspect Hydra agents on the other side of the broken door beyond the false wall.

"Can you get a read on them?" Darcy asked, hanging only slightly back.

If he tried, he knew he would be able to isolate suspicious sounds, narrow down where to look for the attack. If he tried, there would be a chance of a zone out though, and to say this would be an inopportune time would be a major understatement.

"Not sure we should risk me getting lost out there," he admitted. "Might be better to just make a run for it and face what we face versus me sitting like a lump while they make their move."

Darcy looked at him and seemed to consider the options for a moment. "Do you trust me?" she finally asked. At his raised eyebrows, she explained, "There's this thing that Blair does with Jim, physically touches him to ground him. We haven't tried it because, well, everything we've done so far has been responsive and not, you know, initiating a possible freak out. But the premise behind it is sound, I've seen it enough times to vouch for it."

"No," he said decisively. He was not going to risk harming her. He'd seen the bruise on Steve's face, and did not want to imagine the results of the same action on her.

"Okay, so we're sans serum and tranqs, I get that, but this totally works on a different principle," she insisted. She knew him well enough by now that she barely paused for breath before she pushed on again. What surprised him was that he let her. "This wouldn't be me interrupting you by grabbing at you - I'm not that dumb. This is you voluntarily attempting to max out your senses while I am already there. I would be a literal physical touchstone. You know and recognize me going in, and use me as the trail of breadcrumbs to come back out. You've never fallen on your ass during a hyper-aware moment, which means your proprioception remains intact. I would just be a part of that. A flashing, neon part of that to help you find your way home."

He frowned. "This is not the ideal time to try something new, Lewis," he pointed out.

The corners of her lips curled slightly as she recognized his capitulation for what it was. "I don't see you having any better ideas," she replied.

He sighed and shook his head. He made a point of lowering all weapons not physically strapped to his body, squaring his stance, and pressing his hands flush against the chipped stone and crumbling wood that served as an almost vestibule between the hidden corridor and the back of the root cellar. At the very least, it should give her a little more time to duck and cover should everything go horribly wrong.

She took off her glove and reached up to his collarbone, where his shoulder met his neck and metal met flesh under the layer of leather he wore. A sound decision as he would have input from both biological and mechanical sensors to rely on. It was a light pressure, but insistent, and she stood close enough that he could smell her shampoo and feel the way her sleeve just barely brushed against his coat and rumbled with the faintest friction. Multiple data points to categorize.

"Talk me through this," he requested. Voice. Her voice had called him out of a daze before, maybe it would prevent him from sinking too far into one now.

She started softly, aware of the potential for others to be close enough to hear and notice the opportunity to attack. He expected some "Reach out with your feelings" schtick, but was pleasantly surprised when she took another route altogether. 

It was, as everything she had tried so far, really just common sense. She quietly led him from sense to sense, prompted him with questions which brought out both details and made his own connection to her that much stronger as he forced himself to answer. He had planned on listening only, but the smell of the damp cold above that of gun oil, the taste of bitter chemicals mixed with the bite of the wind and the lingering dust, the creak of leather gloves and the rasp of a silencer twisting into place on a barrel as it was adjusted - its owner not knowing of their presence but remaining prepared nonetheless, seemed to heighten instead of distract and he found he knew precisely how many men lay in wait outside of the shadows and exactly where they were in relation to the battered and cracked door he dared to peer through. 

The thread of her voice kept him tied to the present versus getting lost in the number of heartbeats he heard and remembering times past when he would size up a supposed enemy from afar to take them down. It also led him back to himself and made everything seem so much more real when he blinked back to reality. He resisted the urge to bury his nose in her hair and breathe in the fresh almost floral scent versus the sweat and grease of the men outside, embrace the present versus the possibilities his mind was already playing through. He did, however, rest his hand atop her arm for a moment before he slid it down and away, the texture of the brace she still wore now serving as a reassurance versus a possible hindrance.

"There's only four nearby, but another three close enough to assist," he reported, tone formal and clipped. He could feel the Soldier persona at the edges of his consciousness and knew when to use it and how. She wasn't his handler, but he assigned her that role anyway for the time being as speaking to her, stating the facts of the situation, helped distance his emotions and frustrations. Thankfully, she seemed to understand and nodded with as much seriousness as he'd ever see her grant anything, perhaps even more. "They are not aware of us yet, aren't even fully in position. I should be able to take three down before the fourth gets a chance, but the other three will know about us and be on us soon enough."

"Evasion?" she guessed. 

The word seemed so odd coming from her that he drew him slightly out of the mindset he had felt himself slipping into. She was not prepared to provide cover and not prepared to protect herself. He would need to work that into his plan as well. "You're going to need to stay close and if I tell you to run or seek cover, you do so immediately," he ordered, something he never would have dared to do with any handler in the past, and that included Steve. You obeyed Hydra, made strongly worded suggestions to Steve and the rest of the team, but ordered and hoped for the best with the civilians he found himself surrounded by far too often in recent times.

She nodded and adjusted the bag she still had slung over her shoulder. He watched as she patted herself down atop her newfound weaponry, and he tugged her sleeve back down to cover the very shiny Asgardian target on her wrist. "Do not engage," he warned her. "If it comes down to it defend yourself if needed, but know I'm out there and I will keep you safe, even if we get separated."

Satisfied things were as good as they were going to get, he withdrew two guns and made sure a blade was within easy reach in preparation for their escape. It was Darcy though, that asked, "Ready?"

"Ready," he replied, and made his move.


	19. Chapter 19

She was not ready. In no way, shape, or form was she ready. She was cold and tired and scared out of her mind. The safe house wasn't safe, the escape route lacking in actual escape, and their best option was to go head to head with the very people they were trying to avoid. She really missed the days when her worst worries were that her roommate at the dorms had forgotten to do laundry again and her socks were about to become sentient and take over campus.

But James was moving and so went her nation. Or whatever.

True to his word, there were three muffled bangs and three thuds as the intended victims hit the dirt. He winged the fourth, but that guy had been smart enough to use actual cover and had hid behind a tree. There was movement and rustling and shouts and the sun wasn't even up and it was really dark which really didn't help with her overall sense of confusion. James charged forward and she knew enough to follow, knew enough not to make herself one giant sitting duck of a target.

There were more shots only this time they were clearly coming at them versus from them as the bark on a nearby tree splintered and shattered against her. James tucked her behind him and kept on trudging forward, firing shots of his own along the way. After a total of seven sickening thuds, she thought the worst of it was over. Instead, he ducked her down low behind some plant life that she really hoped wasn't poisonous and ordered, "Stay down until I give the signal. The others have heard us by now. I'll draw them out, but you need to get out of here."

"You going to trust me on my own?" she asked, incredulously.

"No," he admitted, and there wasn't even humor to his tone. "Follow the cliff face North, I'll catch up to you before you run out of rock," he promised.

"But the towns are to the South?" she tried, remembering his directions from when they arrived.

"Which is where they'll expect you to go," he replied. It was clear he was not in the mood to explain, not with countless Hydra goons soon to be coming down on them. She trusted him though, knew he would do his best to get back to her and lead them to wherever the hell he had planned. If all else failed, she'd just continue North and hope Natasha's secret sensors triggered enough of a warning for the good guys to find her before the the bad.

That settled, he nodded at her once and then took off into the deeper part of night. She kind of wished she had asked him just what the signal was, but figured the shit-tons of gunfire was probably it. She waited a ten count anyway and was glad she did when an agent stormed through the bushes less than five feet away from her without a clue where she was. He went down with a gurgle before a weird whistle sounded from roughly James' direction, and she decided that was as much confirmation as she was going to get.

She had to edge past the guy and, even in the damn near pitch black, she could see the glint of the knife stuck in his throat. There was no way he was going to make a call for help or report her position, if he even still drew breath enough to do so. She was tempted to steal his radio to get a read on just where the rest of the baddies hid, but realized they would probably have a way to get a read on her as well and that was soundly not of the good. Instead, she took off in the direction of the solid chunk of rock, keeping to the protection of the trees versus the exposure where they simply couldn't grow.

She was quite pleased with the progress she made, right up until she head the gurgle of the creak that ran nearby the cabin. That led towards the South not the North, which meant she had gone the completely wrong direction.

It also meant she headed closer to the guns and not away.

She resisted the urge to swear profusely as, with her current luck, she'd be heard and not by a certain reformed assassin that would just roll his eyes and point her back the right way. Instead, she retraced her steps and started back in the right direction figuring that, at the very worst, she would just prove James right and he'd meet up with her long before the couple miles of rock ran out.

The dark was doing her no favors, as evidenced by damn near tripping and falling over what might have been a log and what might have been her own two feet. She paused when she heard the crack of what was probably a twig underfoot because the distinct lack of vibration meant it wasn't her foot it was under. She had half a second to hope it was James and then half a second to remind herself of her current lack of luck when she heard a distinctly non-James voice order, "Stop right there, sweetheart."

The thin beam of a flashlight sliced through the night and she may have possibly panicked. In said panic, she may have possibly grabbed the knife at her waist that she so totally wasn't going to use and chucked it in the direction of the light. The wobble of said light paired with some violent and creative profanity told her she actually hit her mark, which was amazing as she still wasn't sure what her mark was. 

With the light now on the ground along with the fairly large gun it had been attached to, she could see the clearly not-James guy clutch at his forearm. She used that as her cue to take off as fast as she could in whatever direction she could and hope for the best, clutching her ever-present bag to her side. She managed a fair amount of distance before she was unceremoniously tackled to the really fricken solid and cold earth. The chill sank through her layers quickly enough, aided in part by the underlying dampness of it all. She figured that the fact whoever had knocked her down was calling her a bitch meant they were not on the side of the friendly, and kicked out with everything she had.

It turned out that everything she had wasn't much against roughly two hundred pounds of bad guy and he had her laid out flat and pinned down soon enough. He slapped her across the face and warned, "Don't you dare try that again, sweetheart." Something warm and wet trickled across her cheek and she had the sickening feeling it was his blood. His blood caused by her knife. Her knife that was now in his hand and, damn, of course he was a vengeful kind of guy.

He started to bring the blade down before a glint of something better caught his eye. She inwardly cursed because of course her pretty little Asgardian data drive was visible against her wrist. She tried to wrestle her arm away from him and managed a decent kick to his ribs, but he still had the upper hand and she meant that literally. "Got a feeling that scientist will know what to do with this, with or without you," the guy grunted.

The knife swung down and she kicked up and there was a sound of metal on metal that she really wasn't expecting. The blade glanced off of a very familiar looking arm before it fell to the ground. There was a crunching sound that she was fairly certain was the man's wrist, but she didn't stick around to find out. She fumbled for the hilt and gripped on as hard as she could when she rolled out of the way while James did far more than incapacitate her attacker.

She had finally clambered to her feet and really wanted to rest against a decent looking shadow of a tree to catch her breath, but felt an arm wrap tight around her throat instead. "You're coming with me, girl," her new opponent said as if it were a forgone conclusion.

Maybe it was. He held her tight and had his gun aimed at a very still James and she was sick and tired of it all. She tried to jam her reclaimed knife into the guy's thigh, counted it as a win when it at least sliced against something semi-solid, and then tucked and rolled, somehow remembering to take it with her so that this time it wouldn't be used against her later. The guy doubled over, just for a moment, but it was all James needed to prove to her just how much better he was at the whole slicing and dicing thing. She didn't hurl when she saw one of his own blades sticking right out of a vital part of the guy's anatomy, but it was a very near thing.

"No bang-bang?" she asked from where she lay splayed on slimy and cold leaves trying to simply breathe.

He shook his head, a shadow against the darkness. The sky was a thick gray that peeked through the blackness of the trees, and she couldn't tell if that meant morning or more snow was imminent. "Gunshots will only tell them where we are," he explained. Given that he had no problem with that minutes and or hours ago, she had the distinct feeling it was her and not him that he was more worried about keeping concealed. He reached down to help her to her feet, presence familiar and calming even if she could barely see him. "Come on, doll, let's get you out of here."

He paused to remove the knife from the guy and wipe it on the other man's tac jacket. He didn't reach for the fallen gun, and she figured he would have taken it if he needed it, or maybe if he was sure it didn't have any trackers on it. He then carefully pried her fingers free from the hilt of her chosen weapon and cleaned that as well before returning it to the sheath at her side.

She tried really hard not to think of the blood on it, or how she had been the one to put it there.

"You good?" he asked with concern. He was already gently tugging her behind him, so it wasn't like her answer was going to mean much.

"Good. Fine. Great. Going to hurl," she babbled under her still far too ragged breath.

He paused then and ran his hands down her arms, likely looking for injury but she was going to take comfort in the action anyway. "You did good, Darcy," he told her, and she tried really hard to believe him.

He picked his way through the cluttered woods like he was strolling through a well-lit hallway, one hand on his already drawn weapon and the other latched tightly in the fabric of her sleeve. She trusted him to know where he was going, even as she trusted him to guide her along with him. The sky above them slowly lightened to a paler hue of blah, and she could finally get a good look at where the rock tapered off. Unfortunately, it did so on the other side of a small expanse of open land from where they still hid under the cover of the trees.

"We're going to have to make a run for it," he warned.

She nodded in understanding, already achy and tired, but really liking the thought of freedom versus capture as a motivating force. He pushed her forward and she took off as fast as she dared. The ground was uneven and definitely at a decided incline, but she was in far better shape than she had been months ago even taking her injuries into account. She made it to the rock in what she considered impressive time, and slowed to a jog, only to be snagged by the sleeve again when James kept going. Apparently "run for it" did not just mean across the clearing and she would have words for him about full disclosures and explanations of plans and tactics once they had a quiet moment, and she had the breath to do so.

She knew he had to slow for her, just as she knew he wouldn't dare speed up and leave her behind. Maybe that's what made her dig into reserves that she didn't even know she had and keep on going. 

At about the ten minute mark, he seamlessly grabbed her bag from where it had been draped across her and added it to his own supplies, rearranging two visible knives and a rather unique-looking gun to do so. At the twenty minute mark, she felt a sharp twinge in her leg followed by a sticky warmth that told her that her bandage job had given up the ghost. At the thirty minute mark, it started to snow.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," she wheezed, earning her a quiet chuckle. The chuckling stopped around the time she slipped slightly on some freshly moistened clumps of leaf litter, and James finally came to a full stop when he righted her and made sure she found her footing again.

It was possibly the first time they had gotten a good look at each other since they had left the safety of the escape tunnel. At the very least, she knew that was true of herself. With the sky now more white than gray, she could also finally see more than just shadows and shades, and so she let herself give him a once-over while she knew he was doing the same damn thing for her. 

There was a dark patch near his flesh-shoulder, and a fair deal of what looked like splatters of more than snow and dirt dotted along his gear. She stopped herself from reaching out, but it was a near thing. Instead, she settled for a quiet exclamation of, "Were you shot?"

"Through and through and already healing," he promised as if that made it better. She reached to rub a hand across her face at the ridiculousness of it all, but he stopped her with, "You don't want to rub that into your eyes. Is it yours or theirs?"

It took her a stupidly long time to figure out what he meant, helped along by the glint of something sticky against her borrowed gloves. She swallowed the bile that rose in the back of her throat and asked, "That's totally blood, isn't it?"

"Yours or theirs?" he repeated. When she didn't immediately answer, he bodily grabbed her by the shoulders and demanded, "I need to know if you're injured, Lewis."

She swallowed again before she managed to answer him to say, "Just- just what I had before, I think." She nodded as if that made it real. She didn't feel any new bright spots of pain, and doubted her adrenaline was strong enough to block anything major. He got a speculative look in his eye, so she warned, "And no, I am not pantsing myself in the middle of the woods so you can see for yourself."

The very corner of his lips twitched, but he held back the smile. Instead, he pulled a handkerchief out of some random pocket as though that was something people still did, let alone the incongruity of a heavily armed assassin doing so. If he had spit on it like her grandmother did, they would have had words, so she was slightly modified when he just held it out to collect some of the falling snow before he swiped it gently across her face. It came back red but nothing stung, so she just had to cope with the thought that she had been covered in someone else's blood for the past however the hell long it had been.

He moved on to her gloves next, and then the hilt of her knife which either hadn't been cleaned enough in his initial wipe-down, or she got gross again with her gloves after the fact. He left her leg alone for now, but the combo of the sodden bandage and overlying fabric was doing its job anyway. She blinked and the rag was gone, probably stuffed back wherever it came out of, and she had a vague contemplation of if he was keeping it as a trophy of her first takedown or just didn't want to lose something he could wipe his guns down with later. 

She should have known the respite would not last as, soon enough, he tugged on her sleeve again and began to lead the way to fuck knew where. "Come on," he urged, not unkindly. "We can't stay here long."

She knew that at an intellectual level - the snow working both for and against them. The for was that it covered their past tracks. The against was that they made new bright and shiny tracks in it for people to follow, now with slightly less dripping red against the white. None of this changed the fact that she was just plain exhausted and thought the little bunch of bushes off to the side looked like a good place catch some hypothermia and take a nap.

Thankfully, the next leg of their Death March of Suck was a little more sedate. The wet ground made for careful pickings, the snow for reduced visibility, and the cold for a compress against her thigh. She wasn't sure if the numbness was a good or bad thing, only that she really couldn't deal with it at the moment and needed to push it aside to concentrate on not falling on her ass.

She had reached the point of not being sure if she was seeing things or not when she stumbled to a halt. More accurately, she stumbled into James' back as he came to a dead stop. She peered around him and figured it had to be okay if he let her, and then shook her head at what she saw. 

"Please tell me I'm hallucinating?" she whispered against the shoulder she had tucked herself behind again.

Before them, not fifty yards away, was a bear. A big one at that. Dark brown fur mottled to nearly black in places from the wet snow, claws long and likely razor sharp because her life was like that. It sniffed the air twice, and then turned to stare at them both.

James' hand rested on one of his guns, but he made no move to shoot quite yet. The bear hadn't charged and the sound of a gunshot would let everyone and their grandmother know where they were. She felt her breathing slow to match the silent rise and fall of his chest, and mentally tried to ready herself for whatever would happen next.

Turned out not a whole hell of a lot did.

A motion off to the side, just the barest of movements, caught the bear's attention and her own. It was a wild cat of some kind, it's own fur a paler tan against the snow. It's tail twitched as it watched the three of them curiously, head very slightly cocked to the side. It looked just like the one from so many long hours ago but, then again, she was still missing her glasses and it could have damn near stripes and she probably couldn't tell.

The bear sniffed the air again, and then huffed out a breath that hung heavy before it, curls of condensation dancing and freezing against its muzzle. Without another sound, it wandered off sedately and, when she turned to check on their other guest, the oversized kitty seemed to follow.

"That was... odd," James muttered under his breath, and she was just happy she wasn't the only one thinking so. She decided not to mention the fact the tracks from the animals seemed to fade before they even got to where the behemoth had been standing, their own still sloshy and deep.

Her uncles' stories came to mind as they continued their journey, and she shook her head and whispered, "Oh, hell no."

She was really beginning to regret ever reading that unpublished not-really-a-thesis on Sentinels.


	20. Chapter 20

Bucky took a brief moment to complete a self assessment. The wound to his shoulder was nearly healed, the scrape along his jawline tacky with blood but already sealed, and the remainder of his wounds were slight enough to be inconsequential. He recalled no head wounds and felt no pain nor dizziness. His reaction times were still within standard, which reasonably ruled out poison or other pharmaceuticals delivered to his person.

So why did his mind insist something was off?

The bear had cast no shadow to directly correspond with its location, and had left no tracks in its wake. It could have charged, should have charged as they were clearly invading its territory, but merely walked away. In truth, it should have at least shown aggression towards the lynx, proprietary displays of ownership and territory, yet it did not.

A clearing of a throat advised him that he had been drifting again. A blink to right himself showed he was six paces short of what would have been another small stream had it not mostly frozen over. Lewis followed him faithfully, and must have assumed he knew the path as he had not clearly dictated it to her. He was now a full fourteen degrees off of the ideal trajectory towards his safe house, and he gently curved backwards with the hope she would not notice. It was easy to pretend he was simply looking for a safe place to cross even though he knew that, had he remained on target, there had been a stone and dirt outcropping fifty feet back that would have been ideal for use instead.

He kept his eyes out for a substitute and his mind as focused on the task at hand as humanly possible without slipping into a full zone out or some iteration of the Winter Soldier mindset he fought so hard against. It was made slightly easier listening to his companion huff and puff and curse creatively under her breath. He would have chastised her to quiet herself, but it was actually a semi-welcomed distraction at this point, and he was fairly certain they were far enough away from the Hydra operatives for the sound not to carry. The shallow ravine of the stream itself had the potential to echo, as did one more decent sized outcropping before they reached their destination, but he could remind her then and let her get the worst of her griping out of the way for now.

He didn't begrudge her for it. Much. He was used to silence, with that silence interrupted solely for orders. She wasn't him though. She was a civilian. She was what he once protected, then hunted, and once again found himself responsible for. She wasn't trained and didn't need to be. She didn't understand the threats or pressures or any of the subtle acts of aggression and subterfuge, and he truly hoped she never would. Even with the knowledge imparted upon her by her uncles, even with her own experiences of literal mythical battles, she knew nothing of basic combat techniques and he was beginning to consider it his duty to make certain she stayed that way.

The fight in the woods was an exception, and one he wished she had not needed to live through. In the lab, she hadn't actually legitimately harmed anyone, at least not that he had witnessed. In the woods, she had both stabbed an attacker and given Bucky himself the means to finish him off. She hadn't killed yet though, not directly. He wasn't certain she saw that distinction, but it was the criteria he used to convince himself his current mission wasn't a failure, not yet.

Failures had different definitions though, different levels and different descriptors. He was forced to admit the word quite fit his inability to catch her when he heard her feet slide across a particularly icy patch, and the resulting yip of dismay before she crashed to the cold, snow covered ground. Ground that promptly gave way as it had been nothing more than clumps of loose dirt on a crumbling slope before it was held together by the current weather. She slid, he reached, he failed to catch her, and had the joy of watching her careen down the seventeen paces to the water's edge, and then go over.

She succeeded where he had failed and managed to dig her hands into the nearly frozen mush. Though her feet crashed through a weak spot in the barely-there ice, her entire body did not follow and he decided to count his blessings where he could. She scrambled upwards as much as she could and he grabbed hold of her as soon as he was able and hauled her the rest of the way up and over the slight ledge. Not quite satisfied with that given that said ledge had already given way once, he continued until they reached the shelter of a large pine, the ground relatively dry beneath it as the snow had not yet fully penetrated the area.

She winced when he put her down again, so he asked, "Are you injured?"

She shook her head and grumbled, "Other than my pride? Not really. Left foot got a little more damp than just from the snow though. Is it worth changing into dry socks if we're just going to make it worse in a minute?"

He blinked at the practicality of her response, and then tried to cover for it. "Might help prevent blisters if nothing else," he admitted, hands already in motion. He removed the running shoe she had been wearing and noted that the majority for the moisture was still on the outer layer. Her sock was wet at the cuff and it had begun to seep downwards but her toes themselves seemed relatively dry in comparison. He removed the fabric and made note of the slightly swollen ankle that she had neglected to mention as well as the slight pink tinge that spoke of the possibilities of blisters on her smallest toe and heel. Clearly, she did not see these as deterrents to her current task and so he would honor that until it was no longer feasible to do so. 

The wet sock was stuffed into the mesh pocket on the side of the bag he still had slung around him, and then a dry one was procured from within. He didn't even try to hide his evaluation of her other foot, and she did not protest when he handed her a second sock as well. It was as much as they could do for now. They had very few options save for to continue to move, and so he helped her back upright and together they resumed their journey. 

If he slowed his pace slightly, she clearly did not complain.

It took longer than he would have preferred to complete their journey. In the end, the task was expedited when his charge once again slipped and fell. They were only about a klick away from his own safe house at the time and she looked truly and utterly miserable as the combination of wet snow and mud soaked through her less than ideal clothing. She had stood on her own and managed a less than steady step in which she failed to hide a wince. He had raised an eyebrow at her and she had raised one right back. It was when she took another step and nearly fell again that he had enough.

"Okay, we're done, sweetheart," he said in what he thought was a kind enough tone. It may have been him picking her up and swinging her over his shoulder like a sack of flour that came across as less than friendly. He adjusted her to allow at least some freedom of movement as he was now carrying literally everything and still needed to be able to defend them should the need arise.

She swatted at him and grumbled but was either far more exhausted than she had been willing to admit or far too aware of how much her voice might carry as all of her cursing was done in a near whisper, which made it easy enough to ignore. Eventually, she just propped herself up slightly and let him have his way. It made things much faster.

When they were within range, he lowered her down under the cover of another pine tree, motioned for her to keep silent, and completed a quick recon of the house and surrounding area. Satisfied, he came back for her and lifted her into a carry position again, more than slightly concerned with the way she trembled without even truly realizing she was doing so.

He set her down on simple bench next to an admittedly rickety table and went to start a small fire in the old wood burning stove. The thing would serve as both a warmer of food stuffs and a warmer of people as the cabin was far simpler than their previous digs. Under normal circumstances he would refrain from anything that could signal their location, but Lewis clearly needed her body temperature raised and her clothing dried as fast as possible and he was not about to further risk her health. The fact that he knew there were other cabins relatively nearby that they could blend in with was happenstance.

"Get out of those wet clothes while I start this up," he ordered, and turned his back to give her some semblance of privacy.

"You know, I usually make a guy by me dinner first," she teased, but he could hear the sound of wet wool and leather hitting the floor, so he wasn't too concerned that she had refused. Far more concerning was the way the words slurred together and the way it took her at least three tries to get a zipper to work and four before she decided shoelaces were far too difficult and toed off her sneakers off instead.

"How much ice cream have I bought you?" he shot back. The logs were in place and he grabbed the flint to light them. "That has to count for something." Conversation would keep her conscious, and help give him a better gauge as to her mental state.

"Nu-uh, that was a bribe to workout. No double-dipping into favors," she protested around a yawn. Her vowels were elongated and her consonants sibilant. He heard the uneven tap of the table against the floor as she used it as a brace for her actions and tried not to curse. "Though, ice cream would be good right now. You know, if it was warm and possibly alcoholic." Her stomach rumbled and he remembered she had woken long before breakfast and had expended a fair deal of energy on their little sojourn to freedom. While he could easily go longer with little to no sustenance, she was not trained to do so. Mix in her injuries and what was clearly the warning signs of hypothermia, and he knew she needed something.

"Not ice cream, but I think I saw a protein bar shoved into your gym bag," he offered. He had supplies, but she might as well have something she knew and preferred as a comfort item. Hopefully she would be able to keep it down.

Fire started, he pried open the second cracked wooden bench built into the corner, revealing a far newer alloy container within. The lock looked like a combination setting but scanned his thumb and eventually released to reveal its contents. A set of clean linens were wrapped around a dozen or so MREs and spare ammunition. He had rarely been granted decent bedding as the Asset, and it was one thing he had learned to appreciate since his memories began to return. They weren't silk, and really weren't that fancy of cotton either, but they were freshly washed before they were tucked away and that's what mattered.

He handed her a towel without looking back and directed, "Dry off as much as you can while I make the bed."

The bed was only a handful of paces away and comprised of a thin mattress and two pillows from the box that were fairly flat. He pulled the sheets into place and then piled on the blankets from storage knowing she'd need them. He could hear her teeth chatter and decided dignity and properness had their places, but not when a life was at risk. He turned to find her clad in a dry tank top that must have been in her bag and a pair of what passed as underwear these days, towel wrapped around her shoulders as she hunched in on herself on the bench and crammed a protein bar into her mouth.

He took the opportunity to check in her ankle and found it decently swollen. Of course, he had to remove damp socks to do so, and found that the forming blisters had at least not gotten much worse. Her thigh was another story and he pried loose the bandage that was half falling off anyway to clean and redress it with the little supplies they had from the kit she had packed. Since she had let him get away with that, he also wrapped her ankle to give it some support, even if he didn't plan on letting her using it any time soon.

"You totally have a career in nursing waiting for you if this whole reformed assassin thing doesn't work out," she told him while she fumbled with her ever-present locket. The cold metal probably did her no favors, but it brought her comfort and so he let it be, even if the lingering smell of fake cinnamon wasn't his favorite. How that, of all things, survived was truly a mystery to him.

He shook his head and wondered why the universe always gave him guileless punks to look out for before he led her to the bed and wrapped every last blanket around her. "Stay there," he ordered.

She freed one hand to offer him a sloppy salute and a cheeky, "Yes, mom," which made him have to redo the whole lot.

Satisfied she was as set as she could be for the time being, he grabbed a pot and two mugs and headed outside. To his left was a hand pump to bring the water up from the well. He scrubbed the containers with some fresh snow and then filled each to haul back inside. The sky had turned stark white again, and he didn't trust the ability to go back out for more any time soon.

He set the pot on the ground next to the stove and the cups on the lip to warm slightly before he hauled in some more of the precut wood and checked on Darcy once again. Her skin was too pale, even for her, and her lips held a bluish tinge that worried him. He propped her up under the pretense of getting her to drink the warmed water, and silently cursed the chill that assaulted him.

"Sorry, doll," he said, and really meant it. "I don't mean to be fresh with you, but if we don't warm you up soon you're in for a world of trouble."

"Because being chased by baddies through a winter less-than-wonderland isn't bad enough?" she mumbled. She must have finally opened her eyes because it was followed by, "Hey, are you getting naked? Because that's something I'd really like to be awake enough to appreciate. You and Steve and Thor and all muscle-y and stuff. Thor's like a bro, but I can still say he looks good, Janie told me so." She waved a hand in his direction and nearly smacked him in the face.

Bucky chuckled without meaning to do so. She was still cognizant, he was fairly certain. She just had even fewer mental filters in place than usual. If she could appreciate his form, he could appreciate her wit as things like that should go both ways. Her coordination, or lack thereof, was troublesome though. She needed her temperature up, preferably by heated blankets and a warmed saline line. Unfortunately, a half-functioning former assassin in a drafty cabin would have to do.

He stripped to his undershirt and boxers, earning him a frown. Given that the frown didn't last long before her teeth began to chatter again, he didn't pause to rise to the bait. Instead, he slid in behind her and tried actively not to wince when her frigid skin touched his own. He knew the metal of his arm would take far longer to warm and that she didn't need to get frostbite from it, so he kept that outside of the blankets and used it to hold everything more soundly in place. Also, to be able to reach the array of weaponry he had laid out for that purpose as he wasn't dumb enough to think they were safe just yet.

He had thought she had drifted off when she rather petulantly requested, "Tell me a story?"

"Afraid I don't know any that won't give you nightmares," he admitted.

She huffed a breath and moved closer. The term was snuggle, he was fairly certain, and it had been decades since anyone had dared to do so with him. "Tell me about this place then? You have it for a reason. Why here? Why so survival man? 'Cuz I thought Natasha's place was small, but she's a size queen compared to you."

He looked around the extremely simple cabin, and fought the urge to smile. "It reminded me of my cousin's place. Well, technically my cousin's husband's family's place," he told her easily enough. The memory was a pleasant one, and one of his favorites. No horrors lurking in the dark save for the time Maeve burnt her hand and he had to watch her be doted on by all involved. It might actually be something he could tell her. More so, he found himself wanting to do so.

"Is that waddle and fucking daub?" she asked, voice once again not much more than a slur.

"Yep," he confirmed. He shifted to try not to choke on her hair, and continued, "This one's from the same era as theirs. Had to replace the stove but found one like Ol' Betty too. Ammo cache is new, of course. Windows and door are more modern, but it's pretty damned close to where we used to escape to a couple times a year. River instead of a lake nearby, but when the light hits it just right it doesn't matter."

He was fairly certain she wasn't listening anymore, not out of lack of respect but lack of consciousness. "Lewis?" he tried, and then, "Darcy?"

He could still feel her pulse though, the steady beat of her heart and the rise and fall of her chest despite the truly frigid feet tucked up against his own, so he wasn't too concerned just yet. She'd had a long day before the sun was even fully up and, added with her injuries, needed her rest. He'd check on her every hour or so just to make sure anyway. In the meantime, he continued to whisper stories of his antics as a kid, or at least the few he could recall, and tossed in the story of the time Mrs. Rogers had reluctantly let Steve join them with a thousand and one precautions to be followed. He had grown accustomed to the lack of silence when Darcy was about, and saw no need to change that now. 

Even if he couldn't really pretend it was for her comfort instead of his own anymore.


	21. Chapter 21

Her entire body felt like it was made of pins and needles. Half hot and half cold and she was talking about the same limb at the same time. There was an ache to her muscles as well, possibly deeper, that she didn't want to think about since she knew she didn't pack any extra ibuprofen save for what was already in the med kit. Given her companion tended to get shot at, a muscle cramp or three was something she could deal with on her own.

There was a furnace up against her back, with the tiniest of gaps right at her neck that made her bite back a shiver from the thread of chill that tried to worm its way in. She blinked her eyes open to find the seriously ancient stove in front of her, which meant her other heat source was something else that was possibly shaped like a Super Soldier with a metal arm. She shifted slightly in hopes of getting rid of the tingly feeling and fought the urge to yelp when her ankle and thigh seriously protested the action.

"You back with me, doll?" James asked, his voice a low rumble way too close to her ear.

"Trying not to be," she admitted, confused when her voice didn't sound right to herself.

He chuckled anyway and she felt the reverberations down her spine. Unfortunately, she felt another sensation as well as he started to roll away from her. Said sensation was the ice-fricken-cold air hitting her skin. He tucked the blankets down to trap the heat in, but it just wasn't the same, even if he did try to make up for it when he explained, "Let me get the stove back up to a low roar again so we can get some food into you."

She protested, mainly on principle, partially because rumpled thin blankets had nothing on the comfort she had felt upon awakening that had been far beyond just temperature-based. "Ol' Betty's nice and all, but has nothing on you. Damn, you're better than the electric blanket I wasted eighty bucks on back at the dorms."

He offered her a raised eyebrow and a smile, a real one, when he said, "You heard that part then? This one's not Betty, doesn't have the broken handle or the touchy griddle."

"Veronica then," she corrected, not knowing if he'd catch the reference but figuring it'd give them something to talk about if nothing else.

She yawned, her entire existence tired beyond belief. She wasn't an early riser, she hated working out, and she was not the world's biggest fan of the cold. Needless to say, it wasn't that much of a surprise that she was tapped out. Her eyelids felt far too heavy to keep open, and she had a sneaking suspicion that any spare drop of energy was being spent on shivering instead, even if she knew that shivering was better than not shivering in her current situation. She snuggled deeper against the slightly musty and seriously flat pillow and decided that whole pesky consciousness thing could wait.

Before she drifted off entirely, she heard a protest of, "Come on, doll, try to..." The rest of the words kind of faded together before there was a loud sigh and a rather reasonable, "Well, at least we got the fire built up again."

She next awoke with her heart beating far too fast and the images from what she was calling an incredibly vivid dream in her head. It wasn't "Jungles of Peru" vivid like her uncles had described, but it was also entirely possible that her current less-than-healthy state was messing with her memory of the damned thing. There was the stupid lynx because she was fairly certain that's what it was now and the fluff-ily non-aggressive bear and the woods and the snow and James just kind of standing there and staring out into space and then he was the bear and when she turned behind her there were kitty paw prints in the snow.

It was not a Sentinel thing. 

It wasn't. 

They had already established that. 

And if she avoided asking James about any fantastical woodland dreams he may or may not have had, that was nobody's business but her own. Because, if she didn't ask she wouldn't know and if she didn't know it wasn't real. So there. Or something.

"You okay, do-, er, Darcy?" James asked. His metal fingertips were cold against her shoulder through the scrap of blanket that remained after she sat up, and she was fairly certain he could give her an accurate heart rate and temperature from that alone.

"Weird dream," she finally said. It wasn't a lie. It was an understatement, but not a lie.

"I've had a couple of those, too," he admitted. 

She actively tried to use mental powers that she didn't have to will him not to continue. She didn't need confirmation that her uncle's goofy theories had credence. She also didn't want anything resembling confirmation that said credence may have a direct impact upon her life. Luckily, James wasn't that much of a talker on a good day, at least while people were fully conscious, and he was really good at reading people's want for discretion, so he left it at that.

He pulled the blankets back up around her again, but this time stayed close. He seemed to be willing to wait her out and not push her towards anything quite yet. Probably sniper skills or something like that. Whatever it was, she appreciated it more than words and/or the song that was worming its way into her brain could say.

At pretty much an exact ten count from the moment she felt she had her heart under control again, he tapped her shoulder and asked, "Are you up for some food yet?"

"Is it caffeinated and possibly chocolate?" she countered, making precisely no effort to move. Her body still consisted of pins and needles and the warmth from the hyper-metabolism of the guy behind her was one of the few small comforts she had left. Her stomach rumbled, far too empty, but she felt no overwhelming urge to fill it. Probably because she feared it'd all come up again anyway.

He huffed a breath that she knew was restrained laughter and it made a wayward curl tickle the back of her ear. She didn't even want to guess how bad her hair was, and only hoped he could work his magic on it again. It made it hard to concentrate on his words but, to be fair, it was really hard to concentrate in general. She tried anyway, and had the sneaking suspicion he had repeated himself at least once before she heard him say, "There might be one packet of instant, but you have to decide if you want it now or when you're awake enough to enjoy it."

"Tea?" she requested instead. Not her usual favorite save for being an alternative to the abomination that was the powdered milk, especially if it was something sitting in storage for a while, but it usually had caffeine in it and she could use the extra jolt to get her brain back online again.

"I can do that," he confirmed. He started to roll away and she almost immediately began to shiver again. "None of that," he chided as if it would make a difference.

"C-cold," she stuttered through teeth already beginning to chatter.

He tucked the blankets tightly around her and promised, "The tea will warm you up and I'll climb right back in if it's not enough."

He strode around in nothing but his underthings as if he hadn't a care in the world. She knew he disliked the cold even as she knew he could withstand temps far lower than what graced their little cabin, especially with Veronica going pretty much full blast. He was giving up his comfort and letting her have all the blankets, either out of a sense of proprietary values or because he was honestly more concerned about her health than his own. She decided to do her best not to whine or whimper in hopes of him not being dumb enough to give up anything else.

She took the chance to check him over as he readied an ancient kettle that was probably going to give her lead poisoning or some such thing. It was not ogling, not really, even though she admitted he was a fine specimen of Hot Guy. She had gotten over that after their first few workouts together. He had checked on her injuries, so it was about time someone checked on his, serum-enhanced healing be damned.

His shirt had a hole and several rips, and the uneven tears in the fabric were tinted the brown-red of dried blood. When he moved, the fabric shifted easily enough and she saw damn near unmarried skin beneath it, save for where what had to be a gunshot wound was still a pretty deep red. It was more of a bruise than an open wound though, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't envy him a little.

His legs, aside from huge, really didn't even seem to have a scratch on them. The top of one black sock - which looked plain ridiculous against the boxers and shirt combo - had that extra shininess to it that spoke of being soaked with blood at one point and never quite rinsed clean. She figured he probably had gotten a decent gash, walked it off like the doofus he was, and then just cleaned the dried blood off his leg to deal with everything else.

"You checking me out?" he asked without turning around.

"You were hurt," she defended herself.

He shrugged and the fabric shifted to reveal another bruise that had to have been plenty deep to still be visible. "I heal fast. You, on the other hand, are apparently worse than Stevie back in the day."

"To be fair, it's taken a couple of days and multiple Hydra invasions to get to this point," she defended herself.

He turned and put his hands on his hips and she was in no way staring at the way his shirt pulled tight against his massive chest. She had seen Thor in all his glory and Steve tended to wear his shirts painted on, but James usually wore layers that made it harder to remember just how built he was, even with his casual use of super strength. 

She forced her eyes to his face and found one eyebrow quirked in subtle amusement. Even that disappeared though when he said, "To be fair, you really should have mentioned your thigh. Running could have torn it open more, not to mention the falls."

Now it was her turn for the eyebrow. "What was I supposed to do? Call out to one of the baddies and ask if they could leave me alone for a minute? Maybe ask if they had a bandaid I could borrow? The cabin was Dodge, and we got the hell out of it."

He rubbed a hand over his face and she could almost hear him mentally counting backwards in Russian. She had heard him do it out loud once. Clint was involved. Finally, he sighed and said, "You could have told me. We could have slowed our pace or made other arrangements."

She shook her head and watched the room dance around her in a swirl of colors. She gripped on to the edge of the mattress to steady herself and caught the way he flinched in an aborted effort to catch her if needed. "Slow meant Hydra. Other arrangements probably meant stupidity, let's be real. Besides, the leg was toast before I even stabbed the guy that will be featured as a prime player in my nightmares for years to come." She had felt a twinge then, even if the full suck didn't happen until later.

Those were apparently the wrong words to say. Both eyebrows were raised now when he asked with far more than a hint of incredulity, "That long, doll?" He stood and took the three steps to the stove and then back again. "I never would have made you run on that, not that far. You could have returned to the tunnel and I could have eliminated the agents and acquired their transport. We had options. Not many, but we had 'em."

"See the part about stupidity," she countered. She resisted the urge to flop back down since she was fairly certain it would come with even more of the swirly and she'd probably manage to hurt herself in the process. Or hurl. Instead, she argued, "Tunnel equals Bad Guy Central. Transport equals GPS tracking in the very least. You know this. I know this. You made the call because it was the right one. There was suckiness involved, but it's better than being dead or whatever else they had planned for us, right?" She waved her hand in the air again, confused as to how her hair hand managed to wrap both around and through the fingers already.

His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed, but he didn't directly object to her reasoning, so she counted it as a win. He stared through her more than at her, and she had a fleeting worry that he was having another zone out before he said, "Three things. I need three things from you to make sure we are on the same page from here on out."

She figured she was getting off easy, so she agreed, "Deal. Hit me."

He flinched at the phrasing again, barely noticeable but there, and she made a mental note that certain phrases would probably never be his thing. He then physically ticked off, "One: You disclose all injuries, including if existing injuries get worse. Two: You get some damned food into you before you pass out again. Three: You tell me why you have been skittish if not directly lying since you woke up." He stared at her, clearly waiting for a response, and it took her a stupidly long time to figure that part out.

She huffed in aggravation, but said, "I already said we had a deal." He clearly wasn't happy with that, so she sighed dramatically and dutifully recited, "I will tell you when I'm hurt, which is right now by the way. I will try to keep down whatever you deem as edible, but no promises. The skittish is because of a dream, really and truly. Kind of. It's a longer thing that I will totally tell you while I try not to hurl." The intensity of his gaze lessened, even though he was fairly certain his mother hen tendencies had not. The mood was far too serious for her liking though, so she tossed in, "Quid pro quo, dude. You've got to promise to take my weirdness seriously and answer me something in return."

"I thought you didn't take anything seriously," he told her, and there it was, the hint of a smirk.

"I do when it's you, man," she replied easily enough. It was true. She rarely took herself with any form of sincerity, but everything she had done from the moment she got an inkling of an idea how to help him was done with a fortitude she spared for pretty much no one else. She took advantage of his micro-expression of shock and asked, "So question: Why did you opt for those broadcloth baggy boxers? I would have thought you to be a boxer brief type of guy what with the tac pants and everything."

He snorted indelicately, which made her smile. "These are closer to what I'm used to," he admitted. "Though I'm not so used to being watched quite so closely while wearing them."

"You have a nice ass. It's right there. What's a girl to do?" she asked without shame.

"I thought you said you took me seriously," he said. He paused to stir something that she had a sneaking suspicion was an actual MRE. 

"I do," she insisted. "I am seriously appreciating that ass."

He rolled his eyes and shoved a small container of what passed for food in her direction. "Seriously focus on eating something before your blood sugar sends you into shock."

She fumbled with it for a moment, trying to figure out how to even just hold it while maintaining her blanket-burrito status. She tried to brace it on her knees, but it nearly fell off, caught by her companion's enviable reflexes. He pulled the rickety bench over and had her use that as a makeshift table before he climbed in behind her to become a human heated backrest. 

She looked down at the overwhelming amount of brown and asked, "Quick question: which is older, you or this meal?"

"Eat, Lewis," he ordered, but she could hear the humor to his tone.

"I liked it better when you called me Darcy," she admitted, swirling the gravy over the lumps. "Even 'doll' was okay, you know?"

He huffed, and she had the feeling she was reaching the end of his patience. "Darcy, doll, sweetheart, lamb chop, darlin', eat the god damned food. If you make it through at least half of that, I'll start to work on those knots of yours," he offered. He tugged on a strand and she felt multiple pull in response.

"You should have led with that," she told him, and raised the spoon to her mouth. It bounced off the edge of her lip once, which reminded her that her coordination was shit, but eventually found her gullet. It wasn't horrible, but it also wasn't anything she would have volunteered to consume if given a choice. The texture was a little off and the sodium content was calling woodland creatures near, but it was tolerable and she really was quite starving after all.

On a whim, she held up the next bite to him. He took it and said, "See, edible. Though probably better in your mouth versus your hair."

"Salt lick," she muttered.

"I like it well enough, and we don't have too many other options," he pointed out.

For some reason, that sent her into a fit of giggles, his reflexes coming into play again to prevent her from spilling the lot. At his harrumph, she explained, "It really is a salt lick. It brought a Buck to the yard."

He made a show of checking her forehead for fever and then pressing his cold metal hand to her bare skin either to get a temperature reading or pretend to get one. "Delusional," he announced, but she could hear the grin behind the words. No small part of her was glad she was the one to put it there.

She managed to finish precisely half. Mainly because she drew a line through the mush and forced herself to reach it. He ate the rest of it in a scare few bites and then procured her brush from who knew where as she had yet to figure out where he had stashed her bag. The place was small, it shouldn't be that hard. Instead though, she concentrated on the gentle pull of the brush through the knots, the almost-but-not-quite pain against her scalp right before they released.

It was lulling her back to sleep. Or, possibly, the fact that she had zero reserves left and her body desperately needed to rest was. He propped her up though, kept her in place until he had finished another braid and tied it off again. "Mad skills," she told him around a yawn. He took that as his due, and the brush disappeared again in a blink of an eye.

The less said about her adventures using the less-than-actually-existing outhouse the better. One should never have to put so much on just to take it off again. That, and she was fairly certain he monitored her the entire time, either directly or not, and she would prefer to never have to admit to that particular memory. On the one hand, her clothing had been nice and toasty warm from the stove. On the other, that had lasted maybe a minute after she had gotten outside with the still falling snow.

It had been a fight for him to let her walk on her ankle now that he actually saw it, but thankfully non-verbal communication in the form of heated glares let him know that no way, no how, was he going to "assist" her until she was good and ready to ask. Which she wasn't. Or at least wasn't going to, right up until she stepped wrong again less than a yard away from the cabin door.

"I'm fine!" she insisted when he moved to grab her.

"No, you're not," he corrected her. He relented on the bodily lifting her and settled for offering an arm to hold instead.

"And when we have to make a run for it again?" she baited. "You are not carrying me the whole time. I might as well get used to walking right now."

He sighed and shook his head, though she wasn't sure if it was from her words or the fact she could barely manage the zipper to her sweatshirt on her own. Her hands were clumsy and slow and didn't move the way she wanted them to. She was fairly certain she didn't have frostbite, but the cold had clearly influenced her coordination. That was fine though, she could simply wrap herself up in the blankets again. Bonus that she'd already be dressed and not have to go through that ordeal again.

Or maybe not.

"Jacket off," he ordered. He made a show of giving her a once over even though he could probably describe her miserableness from memory. "Plus shoes. And did you get those socks wet again?"

"I'm fine," she protested. Aside from the fact that she had somehow turned the sleeve inside out with her hand still in it, she was.

A few quick tugs and the thing as a whole was in his hands. He laid it next to the stove to warm up and dry again and said, "No, you're not." He pushed her gently so that she sat on the thin mattress and started to work on her shoes. "You were borderline hypothermic, and I think you might have crossed over, sweetheart. Staying in wet clothes is not going to do you any favors."

He wasn't being mean about it, but she still felt petulant and childish about the whole thing. She was a grown woman who looked after others she didn't need someone looking after her. She also didn't need to be more of a hindrance and she knew that as well. "My leggings should be dry," she offered as a compromise when the wet cuffs of her sweatpants brushed now bare ankles.

"You think you can get those on by yourself?" he asked doubtingly.

"Yes," she replied, and reached for them.

She couldn't. He knew, she knew it, he let her try anyway. Her coordination was shit and she had started shivering and shaking again, making it that much harder to get the tight fabric over her legs. When she nearly ripped one of their very few bandages off of her thigh trying, he took over with a roll of his eyes and a muttered, "Worse than Steve, I swear."

She could have preened at the comparison to Captain America, despite knowing firsthand how the man behind the myth was less than perfect just like everyone else, but instead she took a moment to appreciate that he was stripping again. Not in a pervy way either, but in anticipation of the warmth she knew was incoming. She could get used to that real fast.

He only removed the top layer this time, and then settled in behind her on the bed with his back propped up against the uneven wood. He pulled her into the V of his legs and wrapped both himself and several blankets around her. She still shivered, but some of tension that had been building within relaxed as her back curved against his chest. His dexterity being far greater than her own, he reached for the cup of tea he had balanced on the bench and held it up to her lips to urge her to drink. She was only slightly insulted that he didn't trust her with even that.

"We've gotta find a way to get you warmer," he whispered as he guided her through another draught.

"I'm getting there," she promised, though the way her teeth chattered didn't really help her argument. "Just, you know, stay available as my own personal heater and we should be golden."

His murmur of amusement reverberated down her spine and eased yet another layer of suck away.


	22. Chapter 22

Her body temperature was still in the danger zone, he was sure of it. It was less of him bodily grabbing her to check and more of cataloging the symptoms to make what he felt was a fairly sound diagnosis. If he could guarantee they had the time, uninterrupted, he knew he could coax her there. The problem was that there was still a damn good chance they would be found and would need to brave the cold again, whether she was ready for it or not.

She had drifted off again, this time in his arms while he served as a glorified backrest. She shifted a little, snuffling in a way she would deny was a snore. He tugged the blanket tighter when she shivered again and slightly warmed metal brushed up against the back of his hand with the movement.

Her locket.

It had a tracker in it, a passive one but one that could be activated in an instant. He had removed the rest of the trackers Natalia had added to her gear back in the tunnel, not willing to take the risk. Stark would be watching for a signal, or at least that machine of his would be. The problem was, he had no idea who else might be. If Hydra hacked it, chances were they would get there first. He knew he hadn't gotten them all before the escape, and he knew they were already looking. The tracker would be one giant beacon directly to them. It might get her medical attention, but it also might make her need a hell of a lot more than warmed saline lines and heated blankets.

He knew she'd be at risk for pneumonia if they ventured out again, her immune system compromised and the cold and wet weather doing no favors. Her lungs sounded clear for now, but he couldn't help the way he tracked the rise and fall of her chest, listened for the telltale rattle to her breath that he had learned to dread nearly a century ago now when the slightest snow would send Stevie's asthma on a downhill path with an inevitable end.

He thought back to those times and couldn't help the way his mind questioned if she was breathing too fast, too slow, too shallow, or taking heaving gasps to make up for not getting enough before. He compared it against himself, made certain to take slow and steady breaths as if to subconsciously guide her to do the same. Her breath hitched slightly, just for a moment, and he couldn't tell if it was from a dream or something more sinister. He let himself hone in on it, verify there wasn't a wetness he had missed before. There was the faintest of rasps, but it was light enough that he told himself it was solely something to track, to watch for, at least for now.

"Squishing me," Darcy protested, though he doubted she was actually awake. 

He released his admittedly tightened hold on her and she slid downwards on the bed, ending up at what simply could not be a comfortable angle. She was curled into a little ball, the majority of the blankets still wrapped around her, head on his thigh and arm flopped up and over his leg. He tucked her arm back in under the covers and, when it appeared she was not going to protest the action, let his hand rest against the back of her shoulder. He continued to track the rise and fall of her chest via his fingertips, the rasp via his heightened senses, and trusted the rest of those senses to let him know if anything else went horribly wrong.

He startled back to reality at what his internal clock claimed to be sixteen minutes later. He was still armed and his fingers still rested atop a mound of blankets, but said blankets were in the middle of being tossed to the side. Sadly, he didn't think it was the movement of the very person he was supposed to be looking after that had drawn him out of wherever he had drifted. That award belonged to an inhumane yowl that ended with damn near a growl that echoed through the small room as much as his mind.

It took him an admittedly panicked three-count to realize that Darcy was still with him. He could see her, feel her until she stepped away, and yet his mind actively feared she had disappeared for a moment, that the howl, even if it didn't belong to her, had involved her in some way.

She had used his stupor to wrangle herself away from him. She barely missed colliding with the hot metal of the stove and shuffle-stepped to her final destination. A destination that made no sense at all. She stood near the door now, barefoot and in nothing save for her leggings and tank top, fingers atop the handle. "They're coming," she announced, apropos of nothing, and then opened the damn thing to let the winter storm blow through.

He was on his feet before he could blink away the snow that cascaded in on them. She had already stepped out atop the frigid entryway, toes sinking into the crust of white, and he wrapped his arms around her to drag her back in, slamming the door shut behind him with a huffed, "Damn it, doll, what the hell was that?"

He turned her around to face him, hands already cataloging the chill to her exposed skin, and watched the haze lift from her gaze. "What the..? Ow! Fuck! Ouch!" she exclaimed, feet dancing in place in a way that he knew she would have fallen on her ass if he didn't already have a grip on her. She lurched to the side anyway, injured ankle deciding it was done taking even that limited abuse.

He bodily lifted her up and carried her back to the bed where he wrapped the jumbled blankets around her like a cloak. He purposefully left her feet exposed, just for a moment, to check for damage. Thankfully, her exposure didn't seem long enough for frostbite, but the jumping around did not do much to help her pre-existing injuries.

He let her draw her toes up beneath the covers before he asked, "Mind telling me why you decided to take a little stroll just now? And why the hell you didn't even reach for any gear?"

She swiped a hand over her face and he couldn't tell if it shook from the cold or from fright. "I was here but I wasn't and there was a noise and that damned cat and I swear there was the bear and you are not a Sentinel, you're not! And I'm not a god damned Guide! And I kinda really hate my uncles right now. My life too, but mainly Blair," she babbled.

She was incoherent, hallucinating. She had to be. He ignored the fact that he too had heard the noise, that he was still hearing it, and that she jumped in time to the howl that echoed in his head. They were under attack. Gas, maybe. Make them less than lucid and easy prey. A quick glance confirmed the smoke from the stove hadn't built up, so there was no lack of oxygen from that. Nothing else made sense though, and it rather pissed him off. 

As if to lend credence to his belief that they were under attack, one of the many alarms he had set up around the site went off. The bang of metal like a ring of bells in a cathedral in comparison to the blow of the wind. He paused, listened, but there was no call to respond to, no proof that it was friend versus foe. He reached for the bag, dug out the burner phone from the original kit from the Quinjet where he had hidden it and flipped it on, but there was no message waiting for him, no sign that Natalia and her ilk were involved at all.

He was not stupid enough to make an outgoing call. Not on that.

Instead, he did something he really and truly hoped he would not regret, and put his trust in Stark. He had ditched all of the trackers hidden in Darcy's gear when the SHIELD/Hydra conversation had taken place, but there was one that he knew for certain had never been in SHIELD's hands. He reached forward and dug through the blankets for his prize, ignored the scandalized gasp and the lewd comments that followed, and flipped open the locket. He could still smell the damned cinnamon but, more importantly, he could see the indent of the button, right before he pressed it.

"Get dressed," he ordered, and started tossing her anything remotely dry or warm. "We need to get out of here. Now."

"Not that I doubt you," she said, already pulling on layers. Clumsy. Slow. "But if the baddies are out there, why are we joining them?"

"Because those 'baddies' as you called them are on their way here. Probably already are," he explained. His own gear was on in seconds, weapons sliding home without a thought. "We just have to hope that pretty little piece of yours gets the good guys here that much faster."

Natalia would have been on the move as soon as her alarms went off back at her place, he had to believe that. At the very least, she'd already be en route, possibly with Steve and possibly with backup beyond that. Not that he doubted the three of them could take down whatever Hydra decided to throw at them, but at least one of them would need to watch Lewis, and he had the sneaking suspicion that was going to be him, no matter who else made it out this way.

He didn't bother letting her even attempt to tie her own shoes, and simply knelt down to do so himself. He tugged her socks more into place, fingertips brushing over her ankle to judge how much this was about to hurt her, and then made short work of a double-knot. 

It was while he was bent down that the shot came in through the supposedly reinforced glass of the small window. Clearly they were using rounds capable of incapacitating even him. The bullet ricocheted off of the stove and embedded itself in the wooden supply trunk or, more accurately, the reinforced case inside.

Darcy at least had the good grace to hit the floor and duck and cover, despite the wince she didn't even bother trying to hide. She eyed where the shot landed and mock cheered, "Veronica with the save!"

He still bodily covered her anyway while he reached for something more than a shoelace or a knife. "Those aren't the good guys," he pointed out, mainly just to earn an eye roll.

"Thanks, Sherlock," she grumbled. Her heartbeat steadied though, slightly at least, so he knew he wouldn't have to coddle her with what was to come.

"You stay down until I say so, then you stay directly behind me," he directed. He mentally counted how many rounds he had left, but was not willing to repeat her little experiment of seeing if they matched up with targets beyond the door. He hadn't lost touch with reality last time, but he sure as hell wasn't risking it now.

"I am your personal shadow," she nodded. She shifted slightly, both to ready herself to move and to relieve the pressure on her leg, and he already regretted what he was about to put her through.

He hefted his weapon of choice into position and shook his head. "I'm your personal shield," he corrected. "They have to get through me to get to you. If I say run, you run, no questions asked and no looking back. I will stop them from getting to you, you have to believe that."

"Not liking a plan that doesn't involve us sticking together," she admitted. She tugged her sleeve down over the shiny Asgardian target on her wrist and frowned. Her gaze was still unsteady, but she was trying her best. There were a million ways this could go wrong and likely would. They only needed one way to go right though, so there was that.

"Help is on its way, you will be safe," he promised. He didn't let her protest and didn't let himself question why he didn't give her the chance. Instead, he stood and glanced through the now open window for a fraction of a second before he aimed and fired, the white of the snow alighting to red and yellows as his shot hit and exploded, far more than a simple bullet hitting its target. "Now!" he ordered, and then he was off, the heat and presence of his charge a near physical weight against his back.

He kept the cabin behind him and moved in an arc, sighting and shooting as needed. The grunts and thumps confirmed impact even as he looked for the next agent dumb enough to try anything against them. The majority had been at the front where the only entrance and exit had been to the cabin, only a handful spread out to the sides and around. It was easy enough to clear a path and then push Darcy forward so that she now led the way and he covered and provided a target from behind.

The agents were arrogant and used poor strategy. He believed this more than he believed that they had anything greater planned and lurking in the corners of the forest. Hydra was not used to being challenged, nor were they used to loss. He intended to change this. With force.

The wind and lack of visibility actually worked in their favor. Hydra would rely on GPS, and he had chosen this location for the magnetic interference. He knew the lay of the land, covered in snow though it may be. The gullies and rock formations could provide cover, as well as serve as slippery deterrents if needed. He doubted Darcy could make it far in her condition, so it was a matter of finding some place to tuck her away where she would be safe until reinforcements arrived. That, and leaving breadcrumbs for Natalia to trace back to where he had hid her without Hydra ever being the wiser.

He stumbled when his calf buckled underneath him, a neat hole torn through the meat of the muscle. It hurt, but not as much as his response of a bullet to the man's trachea, so he righted himself and forged forward. There, not even one hundred feet before him, were the double pines that signaled the path he needed.

"See those?" he asked with a rough gesture to the trees. He didn't wait for a response as he couldn't risk Hydra seeing it. "Go through those, roughly two hundred paces forward will be a chunk of rock. Turn left there. You'll see another bunch of rocks after another seventy paces, these ones with a bunch of shrubs growing out of them. Duck down behind those and you should find a cave just big enough to hide in."

"And leave my personal shield behind?" she asked doubtingly. He could hear the fight brewing and didn't have time for it.

"Your personal shield will follow," he promised. "He's just got to blow a few baddies sky high first, that's all." 

She seemed better with that answer, if not completely pleased. He watched her for a two-count directly, and then peripherally until he needed to focus on the attack once more. The idiots who were left wanted him almost as much as they wanted her. Either to make up for their losses, or because they had a score to settle from earlier engagements. He wasn't going to complain. The more they focused on him, the less they focused on the injured woman slipping away into the snow covered shadows.

He shot and dodged and went hand-to-hand if they got close enough, turned their own weapons against them so as not to waste the limited supply he carried. An easy dozen were down, but at least four hung back, stayed at the edge of the clearing where the cabin was situated. A clearing not wide enough for even their modified Quinjet to land, but large enough for it to hover over to allow reinforcement to repel.

He reached for the gun of the man collapsed closest to him and silently cursed when he verified the bio-locked trigger. The man still had a pulse though, body still warm to the touch despite the cold, so he wrapped his own hand around the smaller one and let off a few shots anyway, even though it likely advised his opponents of his dwindling supply more than anything else.

That's when reinforcements of his own finally arrived.

A Quinjet decloaked a matter of yards away from the other in the sky, the stylized A of the Avengers logo bright against the dark metal. He swore he could hear Barton's cackle despite the distance, and he was never more grateful for the lunatic's flying skills as much as he was at that moment. Natalia descended from a line gracefully while Steve outright jumped, both taking out enemy agents with their actions.

Barton didn't fire on the jet itself, but on the lines that hung from it, and he watched as agents fell to the icy ground without the benefit of the serum to ease their landings. He questioned the choice briefly, but Steve explained it when he was near enough to do so with, "No need to destroy your summer home if we don't have to."

Sure enough, the other jet pulled back and Barton followed. Then and only then did he aim for the engines. A flash of red in the sky signaled Stark's arrival, and he knew agents on the ground would be their only concern soon enough.

Said agents decided now was finally the time to attack. Desperate and deadly, they made foolish moves, risking themselves at the chance of taking what Darcy had called "the good guys" out.

He tossed a blade at one who tried to get the drop on Natalia, and she finished the job only to toss the same blade back at him. She also tossed him another clip and directed, "Go get Lewis, we've got this."

He didn't question her, only offered a nod and then took off towards the hidden cave. He only wished he was surprised to find it missing a certain intern. In her place was an agent nursing quite the gash to his thigh and a decent injury to his forearm. The man's eyes grew wide at the sight of Bucky, and he reached for the gun that he had been stupid enough to lower. Head tilted upward in defiance, he proudly declared, "Hail Hydra!"

A single shot stopped that nonsense and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he muttered, "Yeah, whatever."

It was difficult to tell with the wind and the snow, but the uneven footprints seemed to surpass the first formation and wander further into the drifts. They were disappearing fast though, blown by wind and filled with fresh snowfall, and he knew he didn't have much time. Darcy was bordering on hypothermic to start with, injured, and severely lacking with winter gear. The gullies and slopes were slick, and he could picture far too easily finding her crumpled remains at the bottom of any one of them, a single misstep sending her on her way.

He questioned his original choice to send her away. He then questioned something else all together. It was foolish and stupid and he had no idea if it would even work, but he had to try. The Quinjet's sensors, hell, even Stark's, might be thrown off by the magnetics, but the far baser, far more organic option still remained.

Natalia had tossed him a comm unit with the clip, and the static from the interference annoyed as well as distracted. Normally, it would be a simple matter to ignore such a thing, but he was about to willingly try to stretch his already enhanced senses to the limit, and couldn't risk getting lost in the hum and the howl of it all. "Going offline for a moment," he whispered, fairly certain the sensitivity was high enough to pick up his words. This was confirmed by Steve's immediate protest, which was silenced with the push of a button.

He tried sight first. If he could spot the dark of the clothing she wore against the white, it would be easy enough to hone in on. Unfortunately, he found only snow and more snow, variations of a shade that were far too tempting to get lost in as he tried to suss out the contrasts. He pushed that to the side for now, Ellison's phrasing of "dialing it down" registering at the back of his mind.

The thought of words led him to the thought of sound. The gunfire and explosions were muted where he stood, but still bright and terrible should he wish to concentrate on them. He sought past that, past the rush of the wind and the clang of Steve's damned shield, past the vibration of the Quinjet's engines and Stark's fancy repulsors. There was a crunch, the thin shell of ice and snow crushed beneath the uneven fall of a foot. Another. And another. Too light to be the standard combat boot unless the agent in question had skills above his current peers. Too unsteady to reflect much skill at an attempt to be covert at all.

Softer, lighter, carried away by the wet wind, was another sound. The heave of a breath, the rattle of teeth, a shaky and ever increasing count of, "One hundred and seventeen. One hundred and eighteen. One hundred and twenty. Wait, no... One hundred and sixteen..."

He knew that voice. It was the voice that drew him out of more than a single zone out even as it threatened to draw him into one now. He felt his body move in time to it, his steps double for every one counted off, let the volume increase as he drew closer.

And then it stopped.

No scream, no shriek, nothing but a defeated, "I don't think I can do this anymore," before the now deafening silence.

He searched that silence, tried to find the breath that had formed the words. He closed his eyes and concentrated that much harder, swore he picked up the slightest hint of sound. He felt a shadow to his right, large and looming, but paid it no mind. It kept pace with him, never leading and never following and he could give a damn less about it. Instead, he traced the prints he finally saw before him, the tiny dots of the curve of claws next to the soft pads of the feet. They formed his current path, the path that led to the harsh breaths, the path that led to the small figure with a bloody knife in its hand that slowly sank into the snow.

He blinked at a new sound, snow falling from his lashes as he adjusted to the light and shadows, sorted out which were friend and which were foe. The man in black tactical gear reaching for a gun definitely counted as foe. He noted the way the man's arm dripped red and how he limped heavily as he tried to climb to his feet. He noted the muted way the man exhaled a scream when he twisted his head and broke his spine.

It had been a distraction from his true goal though, and he refocused on that. A slow turn found Darcy had crawled nearly three full body lengths before she had given up. He found her huddled behind a completely different outcropping of rock than any he would have suggested and he swore, just for a moment, that a large cat curled up beside her, head propped on her hip as it watched him in weary fascination.

"It's okay, the big bad bear is here now, you can go," Darcy mumbled, words muffled against her own sleeve the way she curled in on herself. Foggy eyes looked up to him and she offered the slightest hint of a smile when she said, "Never mind, it's Bucky, and that's even better."

He blinked as a soft brown faded into a snow-covered stone that curved up and over her, and then again when he realized the only prints around him were his own, and the quickly filling ones of his current charge. He scooped her up and felt her chills to his very bones and sighed, "What am I going to do with you?"

"Make me hot chocolate. The good stuff this time," she yawned. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and he fought the urge the shiver as he had endured far worse in his time. It was only because she was so close that he heard her say, "Whalen, go hang out with Mr. Bear. We've got this."

He huffed at the ridiculousness of it all. "Do you ever take anything seriously?" he asked, a pale echo of some of the first words he ever spoke to her.

She shook her head and her cold cheek rubbed up against his jawline. "Told you: never myself, only you. Now don't go spazzing out from the white and wind. We've still got to get us home."

He smiled despite himself. He had no idea if she meant the cabin or the tower, and frankly didn't care. The thought of a place called home was a good one, and he rather liked that she felt it was a shared location. A tiny apartment in Brooklyn had been home, an Army base the next best thing. He hadn't really had a place with that title in far too long, but was definitely starting to warm to the idea.

Warm was the key word there as he felt her shiver against him again. He touched his comm to activate it again, through the static he could here a round of check-ins and a request for a status update that he was pretty sure was aimed in his direction. He breathed deep the scent of woodfire and scalded water and said, "Hey, doll, I think we have some help on that."


	23. Chapter 23

She wasn't cold. Finally. Kind of. Her body floated in a cocoon of heat and her very veins tingled with warmth but her cheeks and chin felt as though they were carved from ice. Ears were kind of less than toasty too.

She shifted, or at least tried to, but found she couldn't move very far at all. Her little pocket of comfort was apparently very limited in scope. Also, she might have been physically restrained. Either that, or the blankets wrapped around her were just a tad on the tight side. Or, given the way her life was currently going, both.

She felt the weight of her Asgardian bling on her left wrist and decided to move that one first. Thor had shown her how to shape it into many different things and, if push came to shove, she might be able to get it sharp enough edge to saw free of wherever the hell she was. She pressed against the fabric she felt against her skin and felt a sharp prick at the back of her hand shift and stick in a less than comfortable way. IV. Again.

This called for figuring out just where the fuck she was and if it was friend or foe trying to drug her, a feat best accomplished by opening her damn eyes. That task was revealed to be far more difficult than it really needed to be but, eventually, she managed it and took in the soothing black and gray of what might have been a Quinjet. 

Yeah, she needed more than that.

She twisted her head to the left and found a nondescript wall. To the right was a blurry face she knew she should recognize but, really, it was the red hair that made her guess it was Natasha.

"She's awake," the totally deadly woman announced.

The voice had confirmed her suspicions but didn't answer the hows or wheres of it all. Natasha hadn't sounded that concerned, which put her at far more ease than she was willing to admit but she still wanted more. She pushed against the blanket again and managed to get one whole tiny corner of it to flop over. Her surprisingly bare shoulder instantly shivered at the rush of cold air and she got a glimpse of her filthy tank top before it was tugged back into place, so she at least had that even if her sweatshirt had gone the way of the Dodo. 

She couldn't remember if Dodos were real or a myth but, to be fair, she couldn't tell if she was actually in a Quinjet with a super spy or having some pretty decent hallucinations, so that was fair. She decided the best course of action was to ask, "Are you real?"

"As real as your love of inappropriate amounts of caffeine," Natasha confirmed. She checked something on a tablet next to her and added, "We're on our way back to the tower now. We are attempting to raise your internal temperature along the way. Hypothermia is not a good look on you."

"My face is frozen," she told her, apropos of nothing. It wasn't much more than a mumble because she felt like she could barely make the muscles work at all. She tried opening and closing her mouth a few times, but couldn't tell if it actually worked or not. Giving up, she tried poking at it with her fingers, fighting to free them from the blankets to do so.

"Hey, none of that, doll," a familiar voice chided. Hands, one metal and one flesh, gently tugged her hand back under the blankets again and then wrapped the layers under her in a way that was even harder to break free of.

"Darcy burrito," she sighed. It wasn't quite a happy sigh, more like a resigned one since apparently they were not going to let her out of their fort made for one. "Face still hurts though," she pouted.

Natasha opened her mouth to reply, but James beat her to it. "We can't exactly put an electric blanket over your face, sweetheart. It makes that whole breathing thing more difficult," he explained. She had a cannula of oxygen, tiny pieces of plastic shoved up her nostrils, so she thought there was a good chance he was lying. At the very least, she was willing to test the hypothesis if given the chance.

"You were more comfortable than this damned cot," she complained, brain to mouth filter fully offline. 

She wasn't sure what she was expecting from that, but it wasn't for James to unstrap himself from his own seat and strip off his leather battle gear. Top only, but it must have surprised Natasha too if the raised eyebrow was anything to go by. Some shifting and unbuckling and bodily lifting later, and she was in his lap. She was still a burrito, but now one that had a scruffy neck she could tuck her cold nose against. "Best heater ever. Going to patent this shit," she muttered against his skin.

He huffed a laugh and held her tighter. It felt like the jet turned, but she couldn't quite be sure. Her proprioception was shit right now and she really couldn't confirm anything outside of the heat pouring into her. She had the feeling others were there - clearly Natasha was and someone had to be flying the Quinjet - but couldn't raise the energy to be self-conscious just yet.

"We going home, or some other hideout? Preferably one with indoor toilets this time," she asked. Her eyes were closed and she felt no need to open them.

"Tower," yet another voice confirmed. That one surprised her. She figured Clint was in the driver's seat, but hadn't expected actual Captain America on this ride. He sounded vaguely amused, which was better than vaguely pissed, and so she ran with it. Metaphorically, that was. She didn't plan on excessive movement anytime soon.

"You have a couple of people waiting for you there," James told her, or rather, told her hair.

Her head shot up and she was only vaguely aware that his reflexes had kicked in before she could give him a bloody nose. This was worth opening her eyes for. "You found Janie?"

"Thor is with her now, as are Sam and Rhodes," Steve confirmed. He paused and added, "If Stark went supersonic, he'd be there by now too."

"Please say things went boom when you got her," she pleaded.

"Big badda boom," Clint confirmed from the front, which was enough for her to snuggle back into her comfort again. "You'd be proud. Went you're up to it, we can see if there's footage. At the very least, we can show you the crater left behind."

"Awesome," she smiled. Stubble tickled her lips at the action, but she didn't pay if much mind because, seriously, her personal Super Soldier was super warm.

Steve cleared his throat though, and she had a feeling the whole amused part was right out the window and Mr. Serious was back. This was confirmed when he said, "Doctor Foster is not the only one waiting for you. A certain ex-Ranger and..."

"Oh, shit, he's going to kill you," she said, upright once more. "Me too, but he'll probably stop short because of the whole shared bloodline thing. Uncle Blair on a rampage? Like a rabid badger and about that size. He claims he's more of a wolf-type, but he's really not. You guys keep tranqs in here? Because if he's waiting he's going to-"

"Shh," James tried to calm her. He cradled her head in one gigantic hand and tucked it back into place. "We can deal with that when we get there. I think they'll just be happy to know you're alive and doing fine."

"Contingency plan, man. Keep the tranqs ready," she warned around a yawn and a slur. "Might take the ones they use on you to take Jim down. The after effects will suck, for everyone involved, but..."

"Shh," James repeated. Maybe it was the warmth or the gentle sway or the fact that she was no longer in butt-fuck nowhere surrounded by the threat of enemy agents, but she found herself actually willing to be comforted by the action. 

She closed her eyes again and breathed deep of smoke and sweat and what she hoped wasn't other people's blood. She figured she might as well try to get some rest before the shit hit the fan, as there was no telling what the fallout might be. Content with her plan, she let her mind drift to lighter topics, like whether or not Blair ever did get gun certified.

Of course, it turned out she missed the whole shebang because that's how her life was. It was entirely possible that Natasha drugged her again - it would be easy with the saline line and she was good at it to start with - but it was far more likely she was just plain exhausted. She next awoke in one of the beds in Medical, blankets piled high, line still in, and heat cranked up to make up for the severe lack of her personal heater.

What was lacking in heat source was made up for in bestie. Jane sat at her side. Well, laid. She was in a bed next to her own, but seemed to be lounging more than getting any active medical treatment. She wasn't even hooked up to a line, a point driven home when the tiny woman jumped right up and out of bed and scurried to Darcy's side the moment she realized she was not the only conscious person in the room.

There were hugs, there were tears, there accusations of, "No, seriously, how did you get away with barely a scratch? You were the one held by an actual terrorist organization!"

"Safe room," Jane said as if that explained everything. When Darcy let her know by looks alone that elaboration was needed, she expanded, "You shoved me into the safe room, remember? They took the room as a whole with me in it and it took them two whole days to find a way in. The potable water supply was starting to run low and didn't exactly flush anymore, but no bad guys so I wasn't complaining. Okay, lie, I complained. Food supply needs to be reassessed in those things and maybe wall color because claustrophobic was an understatement..."

Darcy cut her off with another hug before she could continue. Jane was in babble-mode, which meant far more stressed than she was willing to admit. Darcy had at least had a grouchy, hyper-sensitive Super Soldier to keep her company, Jane had no one until she had a cache of baddies. Also, when she pulled back again, clearly there were scratches. There was a purpling bruise on one cheek and at least two fingers were splinted. Given that the bruise was in the shape of a handprint, Darcy was fairly certain those wounds were not self-inflicted or from getting bounced around the safe room.

Darcy reached out and lightly traced the bruise with her finger. Her own wrist was back in a brace, though it looked as though they finally got the gash in her palm to stop bleeding. "Please say Thor kicked their asses?" she requested.

Jane laughed reluctantly and gently lowered Darcy's wrist back down on top of the blankets. "Asses were thoroughly kicked," she assured her. A raised eyebrow was the only lead in to a question of her own of, "Can I assume the same is true for whoever they sent after you?"

She nodded and smiled because a laugh of her own just wasn't coming yet. "Manic Super Soldier in full attack mode. Seriously surprised he's not in here pacing at this point."

"That's because I kicked him out about two hours ago," Jane said as if it were nothing. "Told him I needed privacy and that you'd probably want it too. I think he's still stationed right outside the door along with those uncles of yours."

Darcy winced. She knew she'd have to with everything soon enough, so she asked, "Was there bloodshed?"

"Oddly no," Jane assured her. She leaned against the bed, more tired than she was willing to let on, but willing to at least dish with the good stuff. "There was some posturing, and I swear they damn near growled at each other. Thor said it had something to do with territory and then we had a nice little conversation about how women are not chattel, and boy did that shut them up. They've been sitting out there staring at each other ever since."

Darcy sighed and resisted the urge to bang her head, mainly because it hurt enough even with whatever they were still pumping into her. She settled for rubbing a hand across her face - the one without the brace and that she was pleased to see was still framed by her makeshift bracelet - and then she announced, "Barnes, go sleep. Jim, go for a walk and take Blair with you. I'm fine. I promise."

Jane wrinkled her brow and looked between Darcy and the still closed door. "You honestly think they heard you through that thing?"

At that, she scoffed. "They've probably been listening in since I woke up, let's be real."

The door cracked open and James stuck his head in just enough to correct her and say, "Before that, actually."

He still had streaks of unspeakable things on him and clearly hadn't washed or changed yet, a fact she made sure to point out to him right before she told him to go do just that. Him being him though, he simply rolled his shoulder in a slow shrug and said, "Needed to know how you were doing first."

She knew what he was asking, even if he didn't fully voice it. He could probably quote her an exact list of her injuries along with just how many breaths she had taken in the last hour, but that's not what he needed right now. "I'm good," she promised. "Sore and tired and still cold, but I'm safe, we're safe, so I'm good."

He nodded and finally stepped out of the way so that the flurry of grayish curls behind him could resolve into the familiar form of her uncle. "He wouldn't let me in," Blair said accusingly. "Jim wouldn't challenge him, not in his own territory, and you have a lot of explaining to do, little Miss He's Just a Super Soldier I Swear!"

She saw the haze that passed over James' eyes at that, so she was quick to insist, "He is. That's all he is. Let it go, Blair. Have a Disney moment. Elsa it."

Her uncle was many things, but stupid was not one of them, and he at least picked up on the undercurrent to her words. "And you think you can get us to leave just by telling us to take a walk? Explosions, Darce. Hole in the side of the building. You tell us you're fine, won't let us see you, and come back days later banged up and hypothermic of all things. You start talking and start talking now!"

She would have expected him to say more, and he probably would have gotten at least another rant in, but stuttered to a stop when Jim grabbed him by the collar and tugged him back. "Nondisclosure agreements. You signed them. She signed them. Let her figure out what she can tell us without losing her job before you go off on her?" he grumbled around a sigh.

"Well, maybe she shouldn't work here. Did you ever think of that? Blown up, Jim. Blown up!" came the rather expected response.

James hadn't left because of course he hadn't, and Darcy could see the way he tensed at Blair's words. Given he had been tense since Jim walked in, she was impressed as well as concerned for his blood pressure. She decided to cut that right down as soon as possible and announced, "Not leaving so don't even try. We do good work here, all of us, and I actually like my job. There's the added bonus that I actually like the people too, so, no, that's not going to work."

"Explosions, Darce," Blair repeated. He had somehow wormed his way a full three steps closer to her bed while Jim stood his ground. How he was talking through the way his button-up was currently choking him was impressive. "You could come home. Live with us. Regular visits with Granma and you could work remotely, or, you know, in your actual field..."

She didn't even try to hide her disbelief at that. "Because Cascade is safe?" she scoffed. She waved her hands to forestall his next argument and didn't miss the way multiple sets of eyes zeroed in on her brace and her bracelet. "Okay, no. First of all because of no and me saying no. Second of all because Cascade is a level of crazy I just don't want to handle. Also, boredom. Third of all, I've been seen on international television helping Janie and Thor and would totally be a target to be used as leverage against them. Yes, Uncle Jim is awesome-protective, but even he can't beat an actual armored defense tower housing actual Super Soldiers."

"They got through those," Jim pointed out. He didn't seem put out by her words, but more like he was prompting for more to solidify her argument against his stubborn counterpart.

"Exactly!" she agreed. "They got through here, even with all of our bells and whistles, and you can bet said bells and whistles have already been upgraded like whoa because Stark takes serious offense to that shit. The only reason I am safe, the only one, is because James got to me and got us both to safety. Multiple times. Some of those, he had backup, some it was just us. You do not have the resources to take on Hydra, trust me on this. Here we at least have a fighting chance."

"But..." Blair started to protest.

She had one last weapon in her arsenal. It was a low blow, but one that she knew would work. "If they found me, if they found you, what do you think they would do? Jim would be ripped apart for his abilities and he doesn't have the super healing to recover. Mind wipes, torture, experimentation. And Blair, they would take every last drop of knowledge that you have on Sentinels and abuse the fuck out of it. They would try to make more, try to create their perfect soldier. You want your work corrupted in that way? You want to be responsible for the torture of others?"

"Darcy..." The word was a whisper, but damn near a shout considering who it came from.

She turned to look at James, at the way his face looked so painful with its lack of expression. "Do you want them to make more of you? Do you want anyone else to ever have to go through what you did?"

His eyes darkened, and she knew she had her answer. She also knew Jim now had his answer. He now knew just who and what she had been running with for the past few months, and why she was so protective of it all. He had a hint before, knew James was the guy from the television footage rumored to be Captain America's bestie, but didn't know the full extent of why had been done to him as that had been held back from all but a select few.

She also knew he agreed with her one hundred percent.

"We want you safe. We want you where you are most needed. That's here," Jim said, and it sounded like a proclamation from on high. He tugged a now recalcitrant Blair back towards him and she knew she had won. Of course, that's when he said, "You still need to put money in the swear jar for that mouth of yours though."

She snorted, and then she yawned. She was still tired and still healing and everything was taking far too much out of her. "Stark gave me a card. I'll put that shit on credit."

"Out," Jane ordered. She waved her hand towards the door and threatened, "Do not make me sic Thor on you. Sleep time now, family reunion time later."

"Yes, ma'am," Jim agreed with a curt nod. He stepped forward in difference to his words and placed a quick kiss on Darcy's forehead. "Get some sleep, kiddo."

He stepped back again and Blair repeated the process, only instead of good wishes he said, "Notes. All of them. We will talk."

She rolled her eyes as she knew it was his way of saying he cared. Jane shooed them towards the door and, before she shut it, Darcy heard her say, "Please bathe before we see you next? I'd say Thor can probably make you stay still enough to spray you down, but how about we just make a rule of no bodily fluids as accoutrements?"

Darcy heard the huff that passed as James' laugh before she heard the click of the door sliding back into place. She closed her eyes and tried to get comfortable in her mountain of blankets when she said, "Well, that went better than expected."

There was a creak of the other mattress as Jane crawled back up onto her own. "Yeah," she agreed. "Probably because you didn't tell them you were shot."

A shout of "What?" echoed down the hallway outside their door, but no one came storming back in so she called it a win. 

"Shit," she muttered under her breath. She resigned herself to a lot of fast talking later, as well as tossing more than a single buck into the swear jar.


	24. Chapter 24

The morning found him stirring a pot of slowly heating milk with a wooden spoon. He knew he was being watched, even as he knew it was not currently necessary. He had scrubbed, he had changed, he had eaten roughly a pound and a half of hamburgers along with several sides of fries and a shake. 

The shake had even been made with mocha java fudge ice cream.

His internal temp had not fully gone on a little roller coaster ride, unlike that of his current charge. No, that didn't sound right. She wasn't his charge, hadn't been for a while, even when on the run from Hydra's goons. She was his friend. She was someone he cared about, cared quite a bit if he was going to be honest with himself.

He reached for the cocoa powder when Steve finally broke his silence. "You making Mrs. Barnes' Special?" he asked. There was an eagerness to his tone, though it could have been from Bucky remembering the recipe as much as hope for enough to share. Probably a combination of both, really.

He nodded, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear before he answered, "Promised her the good stuff. Ain't nothing better than what Ma used to make."

Now it was Steve's turn to nod, an action he caught out of the corner of his eye as he measured in just the right amount of real sugar. "She going to be upset it's lacking in the caffeine?"

Bucky shrugged. "She doesn't need those fancy coffee drinks of hers right now anyway, though I'm sure she'll beg to differ. Girl needs rest, which means sleep. That junk will just keep her awake," he explained. Satisfied with the lot, he pulled down two of the largest mugs he could find. They had no names on them, though he doubted anyone would actually begrudge his use of them for his current purpose. They were, of course, not just normal mugs because it seemed such basic things could not exist in a world containing a Stark. In theory, they should keep everything warmer longer. In practice, he had never needed them to before.

"You don't have to do this, you know that, right?" Steve asked. The fact he made no move to stop him and only drained the last of the concoction into a much smaller mug for himself spoke volumes though.

"I think I kind of do," he replied. He could blame it on the promise, but he also needed to see for himself how a certain intern was doing after her whole ordeal.

"She's got her uncles to check in on her, and you need your rest too, buddy," Steve tried. And there, that was the heart of it. He was afraid James would run himself too ragged and lose it again. "I know you didn't sleep much last night..."

That was the truth, actually, though he did rest. Washed and scrubbed and all that, he had returned down to Medical to share a meal with Darcy and Doc Foster, the uncle duo invited as well. Darcy was to stay overnight to make certain her internal temperature and electrolytes were normalized, so he and Ellison had camped out in the hallway just outside her door while Sandburg had trundled off to a guest room after some pointed words from his niece.

They had talked long past when the lights were dimmed, shared great deals of information for as little words were actually said. Sentinels and totems and territories were explained, the urge to protect what he deemed his even if said object begged to differ. Ellison reasoned that the tower served as a safe place for Bucky, which was true enough. He also reasoned that being moved around so much, and not necessarily by choice, seriously altered what he considered a safe place, so much so that he was far more of a roamer than he gave himself credit for. Certain things had to be there though, certain people, for it to fully click for him, for him to fully feel at ease. 

If that blew the whole "territory as a set location" bit out of the water, well, neither one of them seemed to mind that much. They just wouldn't tell Blair.

Ellison hadn't given him any blessing or any shit like that, but he had admitted that he felt far better having him watch his niece's back than anyone else, Rogers and Stark included. He also said that this was a move it or lose it time for him and Darcy, that either they gave themselves the chance to actually make a connection, no matter the form of that connection - Sentinel, friend, whatever - or they share that awkward dance for months or years until the world screwed up again and they were forced to deal with everything all at once.

As far as advice went, he had worse in his day. 

Ellison had promised to "hold back the hounds" to which Bucky assumed he meant Sandburg, for at least a few hours to give him a chance to talk to Darcy about everything that had happened. The two were sticking around for a while anyway, probably a week or more before Foster talked her way into gong to Australia after all and Darcy followed, possibly with Bucky and a team he selected himself as security. Ellison could reasonably make Sandburg believe Darcy needed her rest, especially since she was only to be discharged that morning. In return for that chance, he simply had to trust Ellison had watch for a few hours and close his eyes. Didn't even have to fully sleep, just make a rough attempt at it. All in all, it was a decent deal.

Of course, he told Steve none of this because he did like to rattle his chain if given the chance. So, instead, he fell back on his usual drily delivered, "Slept for enough years, can be awake a while longer."

As expected, Steve huffed in mild frustration, but did nothing to stop him. He even hit the elevator button for him and everything, though he stayed behind to sulk.

Bucky had the fancy computer system announce his arrival, which was fair as it had tattled that Darcy was in residence. He could hear her stumble over to the doorway before it clicked open, and he gave in to the urge to smile at her appearance. She was dressed in fuzzy pajama bottoms, fluffy socks, a hoodie zipped up over what looked to be a sweater, and had a knit hat pulled down low on her head. He was surprised she hadn't gone for a scarf as well, but was wise enough not to mention it.

She sniffed the air suspiciously and asked, "Mocha?"

He shook his head and corrected, "Mama Barnes' top secret hot chocolate recipe." The hopeful expression didn't collapse completely, but that was mainly because it was replaced with one of intrigue.

"Oh, sorry, manners!" she said with a smack upside her own head. There was a wince because of course she used the hand with a brace on it, but she shook it off easily enough. She stepped away from the door and he took that as an invitation to enter. He watched as she bypassed the kitchen and headed straight for the sofa instead. She still limped, but far less than she had at either of the cabins. There were still dark circles under her eyes, but her overall tone of her skin was closer to her usual healthy glow.

"You look better," he commented as he approached. He set the two mugs down on the little table next to the couch. She could decide if she wanted both or to share in her own time. She had left a cushion free and he sat down beside her, careful not to jostle her too much.

"That's in part to this amazing tiny doctor Stark found. Like, even better than the time I burned myself. Not sure if I was a guinea pig for her or what, probably not considering she seemed to know just what she was doing. Graze is just this reddish line and they even got this sucker to finally stop bleeding," she explained. She held up her hand where the cut that had kept re-opening had been to reveal nothing more than the aforementioned reddish line. 

"That would have come in handy a few days ago," he commented with raised eyebrows. He made a mental note to ask Steve if a portable version of whatever was used could be brought to the field. Not everyone on their team had super healing abilities, but everyone went as hard and fast as they could when it came down to it.

"I know, right?" she agreed. She blew a strand of hair out of her way and he resisted the urge to find a brush and braid it for her again. Apparently not satisfied with her fix, she tugged on the same strand as she admitted, "Most of the whole doing better thing is all on you though. There'd be no better to be had if you hadn't done the grand rescue and stuck with me and all that, multiple times even. Thanks, by the way, for not running away or anything when I got too obnoxious."

She looked down at her hands, at the strand wrapped around a finger, at the table and the wall and everything and everywhere but him, her uncertainly a palpable thing. "Never an option," he assured her with every ounce of conviction he could manage.

She snorted, and then released the curl to rub at her nose. "Yeah, yeah, mission, I know," she rushed to agree.

"Not a mission, doll," he promised her. "Haven't been for a while, at least not in my eyes. Kind of rusty at this whole making friends thing, so I'm sorry if I've mucked it up enough to be unrecognizable..."

His breath left him in a huff when she threw herself at him. His hands came up to catch her, cautious of her remaining injuries, but he readily accepted and returned the hug she offered. "No mucking," she said into his collarbone.

He tried to bury his nose in her curls, but found knit wool in the way. He yanked the offending item off and placed it on the table beside the mugs. Her hair stood up in static-filled ringlets, and he gave in to the urge to run his fingers through the strands to sort them even as he breathed deep of her soap and shampoo. She shivered and nuzzled in closer, so he asked, "Still cold?"

She nodded, undoing the little progress he had made. "I know it's all in my head and all that, but I just can't get warm."

He thought about it for all of about a two-count before he came up with what was probably a bad idea. Practical, yes. Standard recently confirmed friendship behavior, likely not. "Sit up a second?" he requested. She did so with a pout, but watched avidly when he tugged his own hoodie free to leave him just in his undershirt. He kicked off the shoes he had been wearing and twisted so that he was more soundly situated on the sofa, armrest at his back, one leg across the length of it while his other foot braced himself against the floor and allowed her room. When he reached for the blankets that were draped over the main cushions, she got with the program.

She settled against him with a sigh, her back to his front, blankets tugged up and around her. "Best heater ever," she muttered contentedly.

He chuckled and readjusted everything to free her hands enough to accept the thankfully still steaming mug of chocolate. He wrapped his flesh arm around her middle and used the metal one to fish something out of pocket of the discarded cloth before he forgot. He nearly forgot anyway when she finally took a sip and made a truly obscene sound of pleasure at the taste.

"Holy crap is that good!" she exclaimed. Her head shot up and he had to duck back quickly to avoid being knocked in the chin. She took another sip, and then another, before she seemed to remember the second mug on the table. "You need me to get you yours? You've kind of got your hands full of, well, me, right now."

"Don't mind in the least, doll," he assured her. He hadn't intended the hint of a flirt at the end, but she only laughed at some of what Steve would call the Old Bucky fighting to the surface. "Got something else for you too," he offered, holding up his closed fist. He could sense more than see her confusion, so he opened his grasp to reveal a certain antique locket resting against his palm. Chain repaired, etching scrubbed clean of blood, new and improved tracker installed, and the tiny piece of sickly sweetness he was beginning to not mind so much situated once again at its center.

"Aw, man, I thought that sucker was lost forever when I woke up without it!" she exclaimed. For someone supposedly so cold, she destroyed the nest of blankets and warmth again when she sat up and set down her drink. "Put it on me so I don't lose it again? I'm considering it priceless from here on out."

She leaned forward and pulled her hair out of the way to that he could manage the chain. Once everything was locked into place, he gently pulled the strands out of her grasp and let her settle back against him again. She had one hand holding her mug and the other playing with the locket, and he had no idea how to get the blankets back to their previous state but rather safely assumed that was no longer an issue.

"Priceless, huh?" he mused. "Thought you told me once that your grandmother found it in a consignment shop or something?"

She nuzzled in close and the scent of chocolate with the underlying slightest hint of cinnamon wafted up to him. "Way I see it, Granma might have found it in a pawn shop but it appreciated in value a couple of months back." He could almost see the roll of her eyes when he didn't immediately make the connection. "This is how we met, doofus. Got you out of a flashback or zone out or whatever with the shiny. Helped you find me when the Hydra assholes made their move. Had that little tracker in it to call in the big guns even though I still think you could have gotten me out of there again because it's what you do. Bonus points that it comes with gum for those boring meetings."

He snorted despite himself and shook his head. "You still don't take anything seriously, do you?" he asked, but found himself minding the answer less and less as time went by.

"Only you," she said, surprising him despite the fact she had said the same thing earlier. He had been able to blame those on the injuries and the cold at the time, not so much now. "Never myself and never this farce of a life we're living. You though? Yeah, I'll make the exception."

He pressed his lips to the top of her head and resisted the urge to squeeze her as tight as the band around his emotions seemed to be doing to himself. "You're something else, you know that, right?"

She turned slightly in his grasp and eyed him shrewdly, a glint of humor still visible when she asked, "Was that a kiss? Are we kissing friends now? Because I could totally get behind that just, you know after I finish this awesome chocolate. A girl's got to have priorities." She ruined it with a yawn that turned into a frown, as though her entire body was trying to betray her, or at least her sense of humor.

He pulled her back against him again and settled them both against the cushions that much more soundly. "Finish your chocolate, doll. We've got all the time you need."

It wasn't the complete truth. Ellison and Sandburg would make an appearance soon enough, life and missions would rear their ugly heads. For now though, just for a little while, he was content enough to serve as her personal heater, hold her close, and be ready to catch the mug before it could break when she inevitably fell back asleep.

Before she could drift off completely, he had to know, "Whalen?"

"Lindsay Whalen. Best Lynx there ever was," she replied readily enough. "Uncle Jim likes basketball and so we'd compromise and watch women's as well as men's. Girl knew what she wanted and got it all. If I have to have a spiritual kitty following me around, she needs to be at least as awesome as me."

He shook his head and hid a smile in her curls. "And Mr. Bear?"

"Not my place to name the thing, he's all yours," she yawned and jabbed him with an elbow in the process. "You should really be more creative."

He grabbed said elbow before she could do any damage, to herself or to the blankets when she spilled what was left of her hot chocolate. She made little sense but, then again, neither did anything that had happened to either of them to date. The thing was, he was starting to like it that way. After everything that had been thrown at him in life, the rigorous structure and order, maybe a little chaos was a good thing. Within reason, of course. 

Say, perhaps the exact amount of chaos housed in a certain powerhouse of an intern that was slurping the dregs of one mug and eying the second one without trying to seem obvious about it? That much might be just right for him.

He handed her the second hot chocolate and received a sticky sweet kiss on his cheek in exchange. As far as trade-offs went, he figured it was a good one.

 

End.


End file.
